“Is the pain so terrible, Fanny?” tenderly asked Mabel Creighton.
“Pain? What pain?”
“Why, the pain of your burns.”
“That’s nothing. It was another pain that I felt.”
She covered her face with her hands, and they saw a tear steal down between her fingers, although she made no sound.
“Mr. Hegner wishes to see you,” said Bessie Blossom. “He is at the door, and he is very anxious to learn from your lips just how you are.”
Fanny’s hands dropped, and her face grew crimson.
“Tell Mr. Hegner that I do not care to see him!” she exclaimed.
So Wallace Hegner was turned from the door, much to his rage and chagrin.
“I suppose she wouldn’t see me because I didn’t happen to be the one to put out the fire,” he grated, as he left the house. “What could I do? My coat was too thin. It was just that Merriwell’s confounded luck to jump in there and do the trick. Oh, but I’m going to settle with him!”