the moment he took hold of the levers and started up; and was
expecting promotion. While waiting for it, he hit on the idea of
studying a more delicate machine, and married a wife. She was the
daughter of a woman at whose house he lodged, and her age was less
than half of his own. It is to be supposed he loved her.

A year after their marriage she fell into low health, and her husband
took her off to Lewminster for fresher air. She was lodging alone at
Lewminster, and the man was passing Lewminster station on his engine,
twice a day, at the time when this tale begins.


People--especially those who live in the West of England--remember
the great fire at the Lewminster Theatre; how, in the second Act of
the _Colleen Bawn_, a tongue of light shot from the wings over the
actors' heads; how, even while the actors turned and ran, a sheet of
fire swept out on the auditorium with a roaring wind, and the house
was full of shrieks and blind death; how men and women were turned to
a white ash as they rose from their seats, so fiercely the flames
outstripped the smoke. These things were reported in the papers,
with narratives and ghastly details, and for a week all England
talked of Lewminster.

This engine-driver, as the 9.45 train neared Lewminster, saw the red
in the sky. And when he rushed into the station and drew up, he saw
that the country porters who stood about were white as corpses.

"What fire is that?" he asked one.

"'Tis the theayter! There's a hundred burnt a'ready, and the rest