A number of neighbors gathered around, some who knew both Gerald and Emilia.
"And I said, sir," said the housekeeper, "that their eyes deceived them----"
"Oh, that is very likely," interposed Mrs. Seaton, in her most malicious tone.
"Because," continued the housekeeper, "when we went to bed last night there was nobody but me and that little wretch of a Susan in the house. It was her who set the place on fire, sir, with her novel reading. I hope she'll be put in prison for it."
"But enlighten us, Mr. Paget," said Mrs. Seaton. "Who was the young lady?"
"You are a malicious scandal-monger," cried Gerald, and tore himself away, feeling that he had made for himself and Emilia a more bitter enemy in calling Mrs. Seaton by that name.
He continued his inquiries for Emilia, but could obtain no satisfaction. So many different stories were related to him that he could not tell which was the true one.
The truth was that Emilia, being aroused from sleep by the fire, unlocked the door of the room in which Gerald had left her, and rushed into the passage. The place was strange to her, and she might have been burned to death had not a fireman, who was making his way past her, pulled her into the street. There she was taken up by one and another, striving all the while to escape the prying eyes of those around her, until, overcome by the complicated horror of her position, she swooned away. Two compassionate maiden ladies, sisters, pitying her state, said they would take care of her, and conveyed her to their home.
There they tended her, wondering who she was, for she was a stranger to them, as they were to her. But the terrors through which Emilia had passed had completely prostrated her; the whole of the succeeding day she fell from one faint into another, and the doctor who was called in said it would be best to wait awhile before they questioned her too closely. "She has had a severe mental shock," he said, "and if we are not careful she will have an attack of brain fever." On the evening of the following day she was somewhat better, but her mind was almost a blank as to what had transpired during the past twenty-four hours. The image of Gerald occasionally obtruded itself, and if he had appeared, all would have been well; he was her rock, her shield, and, incapable as she was of coherent thought, his absence weighed upon her as a reproach, and she felt as if God and man had forsaken her. An experience still more cruel was in store for her.