ir singed and
his shirt on fire staggered from the side door. In his arms he carried
the almost lifeless boy, his face covered by the handkerchief.

A woman rushed up, caught the boy in her arms, and sank on her knees.
The man reeled and fell.

*****

When Carl regained consciousness, Jennie was bending over him, chafing
his hands and bathing his face. Patsy was on the sofa, wrapped in
Jennie's shawl. Pop was fanning him. Carl's wet handkerchief, the old
man said, had kept the boy from suffocating.

The crowd had begun to disperse. The neighbors and strangers had gone
their several ways. The tenement-house mob were on the road to their
beds. Many friends had stopped to sympathize, and even the bitterest of
Tom's enemies said they were glad it was no worse.

When the last of them had left the yard, Tom, tired out with anxiety
and hard work, threw herself down on the porch. The morning was already
breaking, the gray streaks of dawn brightening the east. From her seat
she could hear through the open door the soothing tones of Jennie's
voice as she talked to her lover, and the hoarse whispers of Carl in
reply. He had recovered his breath again, and was but little worse for
his scorching, except in his speech. Jennie was in the kitchen making
some coffee for the exhausted workers, and he was helping her.

Tom realized fully all that had happened. She knew who had saved Patsy's
life. She remembered how he laid her boy in her arms, and she still saw
the deathly pallor in his face as he staggered and fell. What had he not
done for her and her household since he entered her service? If he loved
Jennie, and she him, was it his fault? Why did she rebel, and refuse
this man a place in her home? Then she thought of her own Tom no longer
with her, and of her fight alone and without him. What would he have
thought of it? How would he have advised her to act? He had always hoped
such great things for Jennie. Would he now be willing to give her to
this stranger? If she could only talk to her Tom about it all!

As she sat, her head in her hand, the smoking stable, the eager
wild-eyed crowd, the dead horses, faded away and became to her as a
dream. She heard nothing but the voice of Jennie and her lover, saw only
the white face of her boy. A sickening sense of utter loneliness swept
over her. She rose and moved away.

During all this time Cully was watching the dying embers, and when all
danger was over,--only the small stable wi