ith a situation very
close at hand.

"I bet anything that the Palmer House has caught," he said to Helen.

"You're dead right, Bill," called a voice in answer. "The whole School
Street front's going. This is a _fire_, that's what it is--take it
from me." The voice trailed off into the whirlpool of sounds, but
Smith had heard all that he needed to know.

"This is more than a fire," he said gravely, his lips close to the
girl's ear. "It is a conflagration. With a thirty-mile wind like
this, blowing right into the heart of the city, no one can tell where
it will stop. We had better go home."

"Go home! Why, what time is it?" asked his companion in surprise.
"We've only just gotten here!"

"We have been here," said Smith, consulting his watch, "just about an
hour and a half. It is now twenty minutes to one."

"Twenty minutes to one?" exclaimed Helen. "My mother will certainly
think we're lost. But I hate to go. It is magnificent, even if it is
terrible."

"Yes," said the other. "Just the same, Deerfield Street is the best
place for you. I wonder if there's a cab in sight."

As it developed, there was none.

"Let us try the subway, then," the New Yorker went on. "Perhaps the
cars are still running in there."

It was a silent couple that made its belated way home to Deerfield
Street. Helen's eyes were bright with excitement and her face was
flushed; but Smith was almost too preoccupied to notice the added
brilliance which this gave to the girl's beauty. He parted from her at
the door of the Maitlands' apartment.

"You had better go to sleep as soon as you can," he said. "Try to
forget all about this business. To-morrow afternoon, when it's over,
I'll come around, if I may, and tell you all I know about it."

"I shall be home to-morrow afternoon," the girl replied. "But what are
you going to do now?"

"Oh, I expect I shall go back to the fire for a while," he said
carelessly; "but I don't intend to stay up all night. Don't worry.
I'll see you to-morrow about four--or earlier, if there's anything of
importance to tell you. Good-night."

The door closed on him.

Meanwhile, furiously driven by the wind out of the north, the fire had
taken a giant's dimensions for its own. Shortly after one o'clock the
entire block between Tremont and Washington, School and Bromfield was
one vast seething furnace from whose throat the fire burst now
southward and upward with a roar. The wind was bringing