As before, Halsey watched the east entry from ten until two.  He had an eye to comfort, and he kept vigil in a heavy oak chair, very large and deep.  We went up-stairs rather early, and through the open door Gertrude and I kept up a running fire of conversation.  Liddy was brushing my hair, and Gertrude was doing her own, with a long free sweep of her strong round arms.

“Did you know Mrs. Armstrong and Louise are in the village?” she called.

“No,” I replied, startled.  “How did you hear it?”

“I met the oldest Stewart girl to-day, the doctor’s daughter, and she told me they had not gone back to town after the funeral.  They went directly to that little yellow house next to Doctor Walker’s, and are apparently settled there.  They took the house furnished for the summer.”

“Why, it’s a bandbox,” I said.  “I can’t imagine Fanny Armstrong in such a place.”

“It’s true, nevertheless.  Ella Stewart says Mrs. Armstrong has aged terribly, and looks as if she is hardly able to walk.”

I lay and thought over some of these things until midnight.  The electric lights went out then, fading slowly until there was only a red-hot loop to be seen in the bulb, and then even that died away and we were embarked on the darkness of another night.

Apparently only a few minutes elapsed, during which my eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness.  Then I noticed that the windows were reflecting a faint pinkish light, Liddy noticed it at the same time, and I heard her jump up.  At that moment Sam’s deep voice boomed from somewhere just below.

“Fire!” he yelled.  “The stable’s on fire!”

I could see him in the glare dancing up and down on the drive, and a moment later Halsey joined him.  Alex was awake and running down the stairs, and in five minutes from the time the fire was discovered, three of the maids were sitting on their trunks in the drive, although, excepting a few sparks, there was no fire nearer than a hundred yards.

Gertrude seldom loses her presence of mind, and she ran to the telephone.  But by the time the Casanova volunteer fire department came toiling up the hill the stable was a furnace, with the Dragon Fly safe but blistered, in the road.  Some gasolene exploded just as the volunteer department got to work, which shook their nerves as well as the burning building.  The stable, being on a hill, was a torch to attract the population from every direction.  Rumor had it that Sunnyside was burning, and it was amazing how many people threw something over their night-clothes and flew to the conflagration.

I take it Casanova has few fires, and Sunnyside was furnishing the people, in one way and another, the greatest excitement they had had for years.

The stable was off the west wing.  I hardly know how I came to think of the circular staircase and the unguarded door at its foot.  Liddy was putting my clothes into sheets, preparatory to tossing them out the window, when I found her, and I could hardly persuade her to stop.