“‘Look!’ Nell shrieked. And the doctor saw the stranger standing in the gash in the attic the fire had made, the two women slung on either shoulder. He wavered there above their heads, at the lip of the opening in the house, his face and clothes entirely blackened by the smoke. For an instant, the doctor imagined he could be of help to the man and stretched his arms up. For an instant, it seemed the man looked down where the doctor stood, considering.

“And then he stepped off into the air and plunged the four stories to the ground.

“The doctor closed his eyes as if to clear his sight, then opened them upon the three fallen bodies before him. And, his heart racing, he approached, one small corner of his mind appraising the desperate angles at which they were flung, calibrating the slim hope of survival. Dimly, he was aware of Nell Grange still standing behind him as he reached the bodies; so it was for her that he tended first to her mother, gently rolling Widow Grange over and brushing the hair from off her face.

“He sprang back in horror just as Nell gave out a shattering scream. For a mad moment, they both regarded the thing. And then Nell, wordless, bent down to draw her sister’s hair from off her face.

“And there indeed it was repeated. Like the smudges on the walls, on her cheek were stamped the marks of two tiny childish hands.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

A long while after she had finished speaking, my eyes and ears were full of the crackle of fire and the gasp of silence that surrounded Nell Grange as she gazed down upon her mother and sister, and I had the sensation of having fallen through Miss Grange, into a hidden world, into the throng of voices contained within. And how vast, how wide a view of human character she possessed. No longer frightened by her urgency, there in the thrall of her voice and of the scenes she had spoken before me, I knew a gift had been bestowed upon me by my old friend—a gift, indeed a kind of grace. That is what she had meant by the rocks. She must tell it to me because she could see that I would take up this strange, fantastic flower and recognize its sorrow and magnificence. Never before had I glimpsed the multitude inside her, or the wild imagination that roamed free, burning down the very house. This very house—but there I stopped.