closed, but her strength was
almost gone Her trembling hands touched him. He was motionless.

Then when her heart had almost stopped and she was falling in a swoon,
the flames burst into the room, lighting up Gill's face upturned and
white. Uttering a scream, she caught him up in her arms, became strong
again in desperation, and leaped recklessly down the stairs. Tottering
with her burden into the street; she sank unconscious at the feet of
Cassi, who, hearing her cries, had come running, the first to answer her
call.

There had not been so much smoke in Gill's room as Lizzi had imagined,
and he soon recovered consciousness in the cold air.

There was no hope for the store, and no one remembered the office books.
A little presence of mind and prompt action on the part of first-comers
might have saved them, but every one was so excited over Lizzi's daring
and remarkable strength in saving Gill from a horrible death that all
else was forgotten. Some ran for the doctor and others tried to restore
her to consciousness, Colonel Hornberger encouraging them.

"Never mind the store," he exclaimed. "The fire is only making away with
the old stock and giving Gill and me an excuse for a trip to the city.
But save that brave girl if possible."

He tore off his coat and threw it over Lizzi, who lay on an improvised
couch of store boxes, hastily placed together by willing hands.

"Heavens, what a woman!"

He uttered the words impulsively as he gazed admiringly upon her.

Other men followed his example, and they stood shivering, while their
coats covered Lizzi.

She lay still. The weird red light of the roaring flames could not even
tint her face, so white and cold it was.

Over her bent the man whose life she had saved. His face was firm, his
eyes were dry, his pulse was steady. His only speech, a question spoken
in a low tone, sent a thrill through the crowd, in which were now a
number of women.

"Will the doctor never come?" he asked.

Coatless and inefficient, the men stood at a respectful distance from
Lizzi, over whom Cassi bent, speaking to her in fond tones, and their
stern silence checked the gabble of the women, who knew not what to do
to restore her to life, but had suggested many things that night avail.

A shriek, the quavering cry of old age, nor piercing, but heart-rending,
broke from the lips of Lizzi's mother, as half clad, she pushed feebly
her way through the yielding crowd and fell across her daughte