Running to the window-places, they saw great sheets of flame leaping from the Abbey roofs.

They threw open the casements and stared out terrified.

Sister Bridget was sent even to wake the deaf gardener and his wife, who lived in the gateway, and command them to go forth and learn what passed, and the meaning of the shouts they heard, for they feared that Blossholme was attacked by some army.
A long while went by, and Bridget returned with a confused tale, which, as it had been gathered by an imbecile from a deaf gardener, was not easy to understand.

Meanwhile the shoutings went on and the fire at the Abbey burnt ever more fiercely, so that the nuns thought that their last hour had come, and knelt down to pray at the casement.
Just then Cicely and Emlyn appeared among them, and stared at the great fire.
Suddenly Cicely turned round, and, fixing her large blue eyes on Emlyn, said, in the hearing of them all-- "The Abbey burns.

Why, Nurse, they told me that you said it would be so, yonder amid the ashes of Cranwell Towers.