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Who she was the stranger did not know. Possibly some belated servant returning from the village. He did not trouble to examine his burden, and might have been no wiser if he had, for Joan's face was smeared with the soft loam mud into which she had mercifully fallen.

Evidently nobody intended coming out to fight the flames. He heard a voice from one of the windows demanding that the fire brigade be sent for.

"'Phone, my dear man, 'phone! And don't bother me till the beastly fire is out."

It was at that moment that Joan recovered consciousness. She opened her eyes and stared wildly round. Somebody was supporting her head on his knee. Her face was wet with falling rain; above her were the swaying branches of bushes. How did she get there?

"I think you'll be O.K. now," said a voice, strangely muffled.

She stared up at him, recognising instantly the voice of James Morlake.

"What has happened?" she asked, and then she smelt the pungent perfume of burnt wood and shivered.

The tree under which she had stood had been struck, and by some miracle she had escaped.