etween the eyes, sprung over the
threshold.

Wilde paused a single instant to shout back:

"I leave you to your fate, my handsome doctor! Ha! ha! ha!"

But fate did not intend Jay Gardiner to die just then, even though he
sunk back upon the flags with an awful groan and fully realized the
horror of the situation.

That groan saved him. A fireman heard it, and in less time than it takes
to tell it, a brawny, heroic fellow sprung through the iron door-way,
which Wilde in his mad haste had not taken time to close.

A moment more, and the fireman had carried his burden up through the
flames, and out into the pure air.

The fresh air revived the young doctor, as nothing else could have done.

"Give me your name and address," he said, faintly, to the fireman. "You
shall hear from me again;" and the man good-naturedly complied, and then
turned back the next instant to his duty.

In the excitement, he forgot to ask whose life it was he had saved.

The fire proved to be a fearful holocaust. Canal Street had never known
a conflagration that equaled it.

Doctor Gardiner made superhuman efforts to enter the tenement-house, to
save the life of the old basket-maker--Bernardine's hapless father--who
stood paralyzed, incapable of action, at an upper window. But no human
being could breast that sea of flame; and with a cry of horror, the
young doctor saw the tenement collapse, and David Moore was buried in
the ruins.

He had forfeited his life for the brandy he had taken just a little
while before, which utterly unfitted him to make an effort to get out of
the building.

Jay Gardiner, sick at heart, turned away with a groan. He must go to
Bernardine at once; but, Heaven help her! how could he break the news of
her great loss to her?

As he was deliberating on what course to pursue, a hand was suddenly
laid on his shoulder, and a voice said, lustily:

"By all that is wonderful, I can scarcely believe my eyes, Jay Gardiner,
that this is you! I expected you were at this moment hundred of miles
away from New York. But, heavens! how ill you look! Your clothes are
covered with dust. What can be the matter with you, Jay?"

Turning suddenly at the sound of the familiar voice, Doctor Gardiner
found himself face to face with the young physician who took charge of
his office while he was away.

"Come with me; you shall not tell me now, nor talk. Come to the office,
and let me fix up something for you, or you will have a spell o