It had begun at the eastern end of the building, the end most remote from those disused rooms in the ivy-covered west wing; but the wind was blowing from the north-east, and the flames were spreading rapidly towards that western angle.

There was little chance that any part of the house could be saved.
While Ellen Whitelaw was looking on at the work of ruin, with a sense of utter helplessness, hearing the selfish lamentations of Mrs.Tadman and Sarah Batts like voices in a dream, she was suddenly aroused from this state of torpor by a loud groan, which sounded from not very far off.

It came from behind her, from the direction of the poplars.

She flew to the spot, and on the ground beneath one of them she found a helpless figure lying prostrate, with an awful smoke-blackened face--a figure and face which for some moments she did not recognize as her husband's.
She knew him at last, however, and knelt down beside him.

He was groaning in an agonized manner, and had evidently been fearfully burnt before he made his escape.
"Stephen!" she cried.