g down
upon her shoulders and about her face were glittering sparks of heat
and light. They were scorching her; already she could smell the odor
of her burning hair. One movement the girl made to protect her head,
then in a flash her hands were covering her eyes again. She wanted to
run, and yet some subconscious idea restrained her. Running would only
make the flames leap faster and higher. And surely in an instant some
one must come to her assistance; for her own low cry had been echoed by
a dozen other voices.

Then Betty felt herself roughly seized and dragged stumbling away from
her former position, while a sudden, smothering darkness destroyed her
breath and vision; and none too tender hands seemed to be pressing down
the top of her head.

Another moment and she was pulling feebly at the scorched coat
enveloping her.

"Please take it off. I am all right now. The fire must be out, and
I'm stifling," she pleaded.

But about her there followed another firm closing in of the heavy
material. And then the darkness lifted, showing Anthony Graham
standing close beside her in his shabby shirt sleeves, holding his
ruined coat in his hands. In a terrified group near by was every other
human being in the room, excepting Jim Meade and Frank Wharton, who
were pulling down the burning pine and cedar branches from the wall and
stamping out the last sparks of fire caused by the overturning of one
of the candles.

"What happened to me? Am I much burned?" Betty asked, trying to smile
and yet feeling her lips quiver tremulously. "Won't somebody please
take me home?" Now she dared not put up her hands toward her pretty
hair, for it was enough to try and bear the pain that seemed to be
covering her head and shoulders like a blanket of fire.

Surely the faces before her must look whiter and more terror-stricken
than her own. Mollie and Faith were both crying. Betty wondered just
why. And Anthony Graham was staring at her with such a strange
expression. She wanted to thank him, to say that she was sorry and
grateful at the same time, but could not recall exactly what had
happened. Then that funny Herr Crippen was shaking all over and saying
"Mein liebes Kind," just as though it were Esther who had been hurt.
At last, however, Rose Dyer and Dr. Barton, each with an arm about her,
were leading her across the length of that interminable and now
pitch-black room with a floor that seemed to be rising before her eyes