“Well, what about Reggie Bertie?”
“For heaven’s sakes, go to sleep,” I entreated her, and with a grunt of
disgust she at last turned over.
Next morning Paul’s letter fully decided me. It said that he would be at
the station to meet me! He was expecting me, and I must not, on any
account, fail him.
“Lil, wake up! Wake up!” I cried, shaking her by the arm. “I’m going to
take the first train back to New York.”
Lil answered sleepily:
“Marion, you always were crazy.”
All of a sudden the room turned red on all sides of us, and I realized
that it was on fire. The little stove had a pipe with an elbow in the
wall, and when I put a match to the kindling, the flames must have crept
up to the thin wooden walls from the elbow, and in an instant the wall
had ignited. I had on only a nightdress. I seized the quilt off the bed,
and threw it on the flames, but it seemed only to serve as fresh fuel.
Lil was
[Illustration: And both shrieking we ran out into the hall.]
crouched back on the bed, petrified with terror, and literally unable to
move. Desperately screaming, “Fire, fire!” I seized the pitcher and
flung it at the flames, and then somehow I grabbed hold of Lil by the
hand, and both shrieking, we ran out into the hall. Then I fainted. When
I came to, the fire was out, and the landlady and her son and husband
and Lil were all standing over me, laughing and crying.
“Well,” said the man, “did you try to burn us out?” He turned to his
wife, and said: “It’s a good job I got that insurance, eh?”
My clothes were not burned, but soaking wet, and so I missed my
train--the train that Paul was going to meet.