At his suggestion she had at first laid out a heavy woollen dress and Scotch plaid shawl. She nervously sought to put on the dress, but her trembling fingers could not fasten it over her wildly throbbing bosom. Dennis saw that in the terrible emergency he must act the part of a brother or husband, and springing forward he assisted her with the dexterity he had learned in childhood.
Just then a blazing piece of roof, borne on the wings of the gale, crashed through the window, and in a moment the apartment, that had seemed like a beautiful casket for a still more exquisite jewel, was in flames.
Hastily wrapping Christine in the blanket shawl, he snatched her, crying and wringing her hands, into the street.
Holding his hand she ran two or three blocks with all the speed her wild terror prompted; then her strength began to fail, and she pantingly cried that she could run no longer. But this rapid rush carried them out of immediate peril, and brought them into the flying throng pressing their way northward and westward. Wedged into the multitude they could only move on with it in the desperate struggle forward. But fire was falling about them like a meteoric shower.
Suddenly Christine uttered a sharp cry of pain. She had stepped on a burning cinder, and then realized for the first time, in her excitement, that her feet were bare.
"Oh, what shall I do?" she cried piteously, limping and leaning heavily on Dennis's arm.
"Indeed, Miss Ludolph, from my heart I pity you."
"Can you save me? Oh, do you think you can save me?" she moaned, in an agony of fear.
"Yes, I feel sure I can. At any rate I shall not leave you;" and taking her a little out of the jostling crowd he kneeled and bound up the burned foot with his handkerchief. A little further on they came to a shoe-store with doors open and owners gone. Almost carrying Christine into it, for her other foot was cut and bleeding, he snatched down a pair of boy's stout gaiters, and wiping with another handkerchief the blood and dust from her tender little feet, he made the handkerchiefs answer for stockings, and drew the shoes on over them.
In the brief moment so occupied, Christine said, with tears in her eyes: "Mr. Fleet, how kind you are! How little I deserve all this!"