bent arm, and seized
the cover of the roulette wheel, which lay neatly folded on the end of
the bar.

"Give me room!" he bellowed, in his heavy, thunderous voice. "Stop
'em, Dick! For God's sake, stop 'em!"

Dick leaped in among the crowd that was madly stampeding--women with
faces whose terror showed through masks of rouge, shrieking, men who
cursed, trampled, and elbowed their way to the outer air, and the
wild-eyed musicians seeking to escape from a fire-trap. Dick struck
right and left, and in the little space created Bill swathed the girl
in the cover, smothering the flames. And all the time he shouted:

"Don't run. What's the matter with you? Go back and put the fire out!
Don't be idiots!"

As suddenly as it had commenced the panic subsided, and the tide
turned the other way. Sobbing women hovered round the door, and men
began to form a bucket line. In a long age of five or ten minutes the
excitement was over, and the fire extinguished. The dance-hall floor
was littered with pieces of scorched wood torn bodily from the boxes,
and the remnants of the lamp which had exploded and caused the havoc
were being swept into the sodden, steaming heap in the center of the
room.

Through the press at the sides came The Lily, who, in the turmoil, had
sought refuge behind the bar. The partners, stooping over the
unconscious, swaddled figure on the floor, looked up at her, and Dick
saw that her face was as calm and unemotional as ever.

"Bring her to my room," she said; "I'll show you where it is. You,
Tim," she called to one of the bartenders, "go as quickly as you can
and get Doctor Mills."

The partners meekly followed her lead, pausing but once, when she
turned to hold up an authoritative hand and tell the curious ones who
formed a wake that they must go back, or at least not come ahead to
make the case more difficult. Mathews carried his senseless burden as
easily as if it were of no weight, and even as they turned up a
hallway leading to a flight of stairs ascending to The Lily's
apartments, the doctor and bartender came running to join them.

Not until they had swathed the girl in cooling bandages did any one
speak. Then, as they drew the sheet tenderly over her, they became
conscious of one another. As Bill looked up through blistered eyelids,
exposing a cruelly scorched face, his lips broke into a painful
smile.

"Doctor," The Lily said, "now you had better care for this patient."

She put her firm, white