"My dear Harry, I want to resign my charge. Will you come over and
help me?"


When the Dean at last rose from writing that, I think it was far on
in the night. As he rose he looked again through the window, looked
once and then once more, and so stood with widening eyes, and his
face set towards what he saw.

What was that? That light in the sky there, eastward?--near or far
he could not say. Was it already the dawn of the New Jerusalem
brightening in the east, or was it--look--in the church
itself,--what is that?--that dull red glow that shines behind the
stained-glass windows, turning them to crimson? that fork of flame
that breaks now from the casement and flashes upward, along the
wood--and see--that sudden sheet of fire that springs the windows of
the church with the roar of splintered glass and surges upward into
the sky, till the dark night and the bare trees and sleeping street
of Mariposa are all illumined with its glow!

Fire! Fire! and the sudden sound of the bell now, breaking upon the
night.

So stood the Dean erect, with one hand pressed against the table for
support, while the Mariposa fire bell struck out its warning to the
sleeping town,--stood there while the street grew loud with the
tumult of voices,--with the roaring gallop of the fire brigade,--with
the harsh note of the gong--and over all other sounds, the great
seething of the flames that tore their way into the beams and rafters
of the pointed church and flared above it like a torch into the