already coming into the city of coast hamlets that had
literally been torn to pieces. Other wild rumors were flying about. New
York had disappeared. Chicago had been swept by a tidal wave. As the
telegraph wires were all down no one attempted to account for these
items of news, but so much had already happened that if the eastern
hemisphere had dropped to the level of Atlantis, no one would have
stared.

When they reached Union Square they found it so crowded that they hardly
could make their way. Not only the guests of the St. Francis Hotel, that
flanked it, had taken refuge in the open, but those of many other
hotels. A few of the men were still in pyjamas, and of the women in
dressing-gown or opera-cloak, caught up as they fled. But the majority
had ventured back and dressed themselves, so that the "sights" were not
what they may have been an hour earlier. But no one seemed to care for
shelter; at all events they liked companionship in misery, although few
besides the foreign members of the Grand Opera Company were voluble.
Gwynne and Victoria and Isabel saw many of their acquaintance, not all
recognizable at first, for even those that had returned to their rooms
to dress themselves had taken little pains with their hair. One woman of
great beauty, however, whose husband's hat surmounted her flowing locks,
was just informing Isabel that she had reached that frame of mind where
vanity was pressing apprehension to the wall, when there was an
explosive sound, another as of rushing wings, the crowd stumbled against
one another, and the large buildings about the square rocked. Again
there was an exodus, and some clutching and gasping; but only a few of
the refugees from the burning district, sitting on the furniture they
had dragged with them, screamed. It was over in a few seconds, and then
Gwynne pressed his women gently out of the crowd and down, through the
tide of refugees, to Market Street. They walked in the middle of the
street, for the sidewalks in this business district, where many of the
buildings were of brick or stone, were littered with the debris of
fallen cornice and shattered windows and chimneys. Market Street was
kept open for automobiles, and the crossing refugees; the spectators
stood on the edge of the northern pavement only, and in some cases on
the top of bricks that represented an outer wall. A number of the
refugees were marching towards the ferries, although a curtain of smoke
bounded the lower