't have left her--an old woman--to save herself!"

Mona was beside herself with the horror of the thing.

"They tried," said Mrs. Row, gently, "but they were beaten back.
Mrs. Carne tried until she was--There! She's gone--Mona's gone!"
Her explanation ended in a scream. "Oh, stop her--somebody, do, she'll be
killed."

"It'd have been sensibler to have told her the truth at once," said Tom
Harris, impatiently. "She's got to know, poor maid. Now we shall have
another life thrown away, more than likely, and Mrs. Carne with a broken
leg, and nobody knows what other damage."

Slipping through the crowd in the darkness, Mona, in a perfect frenzy of
fear, dashed into the house. All she was conscious of was hot anger
against all those who stood about talking and looking on and doing
nothing, while granny lay helpless in her bed suffocating, perhaps
burning; were they mad!--did they want granny to die?--didn't they care,
that no one made any attempt to save her. Through the semi-darkness, the
haze of smoke and steam, she heard people, and voices, but she could not
see anyone. The heat was fearful, and the smell of burning made her feel
sick.

She groped her way stumblingly through the kitchen. The furniture seemed
to her to be scattered about as though on purpose to hinder her, but she
kept along by the dressers as well as she could. They would be a guide,
she thought. "Poor tea-set! There will be little of it left now."
Her fingers touched something soft. Lucy's stocks, still in the vase.
At last she found herself at the foot of the staircase. The door was
closed. Someone had wisely shut it to check the rush of air up it.
After a struggle, Mona managed to open it again, and fell back before the
overpowering heat and the smoke which choked and blinded her. She clapped
her hand over her nose and mouth, and crouching down, dragged herself a
little way up, lying almost flat on her face, she was so desperate now
with the horror of it all, beside herself. Ahead of her was what looked
like a blazing furnace. All around her was an awful roaring, the noise of
burning, broken into every now and again by a crash, after which the red
light blazed out brighter, and the roaring redoubled.

How could anyone live in such a furnace. An awful cry of despair broke
from her parched throat. "Granny!" she screamed. "Oh, granny! Where are
you? I can't reach--" Another crash, and a blazing beam fell across the
head of the bur