"It is useless!" he cried to himself, as he turned to descend to the
servants below.

Then, before he had made two steps agonizing shrieks rang out from
somewhere above, and he stopped dead, almost appalled.

"Miss Mary and Mrs. Maynard!" he heard the old men shout from below,
and the cries of the women servants grew frantic, as the little band
gazed terror-stricken upwards. George, too, cast his eyes aloft, and
there, to his utter dismay, were dimly seen through the smoke a couple
of female forms peeping from the topmost corridor.

He knew well enough by sight Mr. Blackett's little daughter of eleven
and her governess, a stately old lady, said to be an impoverished
relative of the Squire himself. The little pony chaise in which the
two were wont to drive about the neighbourhood was, indeed, familiar
to every soul in the district.

"We had forgotten them, we had forgotten them!" came a voice just
below him, and there stood old Reuben, who had pulled himself up the
steps a little way. "They are lost!" the aged servant moaned. "Oh
dear, oh dear!" And the poor old fellow blundered down the steps
again, weeping like a child.

"Is there any other staircase up to the top of the house?" the boy
called after him.

"Only that in the servants' wing," was the reply, "and that is gone
already. God help us all!"