After a long interval he lifted his scorched eyelids slowly, and looked at her with a strange dim gaze.
"The west wing," he muttered; "is that burnt ?" "No, Stephen, not yet; but there's little hope they'll save any part of the house." "They must save that; the rest don't matter--I'm insured heavily; but they must save the west wing." His wife concluded from this that he had kept some of his money in one of those western rooms.

The seed-room perhaps, that mysterious padlocked chamber, where she had heard the footstep.

And yet she had heard him say again and again that he never kept an unnecessary shilling in the house, and that every pound he had was out at interest.

But such falsehoods and contradictions are common enough amongst men of miserly habits; and Stephen Whitelaw would hardly be so anxious about those western rooms unless something of value were hidden away there.

He closed his eyes again, and lay groaning faintly for some time; then opened them suddenly with a frightened look and asked, in the same tone, "The west wing--is the west wing afire yet ?" "The wind blows that way, Stephen, and the flames are spreading.