“Save your worry. If I tell her anything at all it will only be the truth.”
As it turned out, Miss Marion was rather capricious—she heard Joe tell long yarns of his friend’s bravery, she respected him as a man, even while openly disliking his profession, but Eric soon saw she was giving him no sort of encouragement.
This was hard because he was already deeply in love with the girl.
He went his way, taking his disappointment as best he could—they met occasionally, but Eric did not pursue the game.
One night when Joe and the two ladies were on the way home in a street car, it was suddenly halted—there was a fire ahead.
Marian had never seen a large fire and Joe, good-natured always, readily agreed to take them where they could have a view.
The giant shouldered a way for them through the crowd, and soon they stood in a doorway watching the flames play riot with the tenement near by.
It was a terrible sight and a pitiful one to those who looked on—many poor families were driven out, carrying what they could lay hands on, one a trunk, another a feather bed, and a third some old gowns.
Fright made their faces wrinkled, and such looks the ladies had never seen before. Suddenly a cry went up.
The flames were roaring, engines pumping and much noise sounding, but this shriek pierced the hearts of all—it was a mother’s wail.