“Let me go!” Bayard cried fiercely, angrily. “She is in there yet! I—I—will rescue her, or perish with her.”
Waverley Osborne understood instantly. Bayard Lorraine had found out somehow about Widow Karrick. He believed she was in there under the terrible ruins, dying, or perhaps already dead.
Waverley called out loudly:
“Mr. Lorraine, you are mistaken! Fairfax Fielding is not in there. She did not go to work this morning. She is at my house—safe!”
Then he swooned, and knew no more until he found himself at home, in his own bed, with Sadie weeping over him, and Fairfax Fielding trying to comfort her.
“Dear Sadie, indeed you know that he is not going to die. The doctor said when he set his broken arms that with care he would do very nicely. And he is going to send a regular nurse, and he will be sure to get well.”
Then they saw that his eyes were open, and Sadie began to pet him between smiles and tears.
“And only think,” she said, “your life was saved by Prince Gonzaga! Yes, you would have been burned up in the ruins but for him. He went to your assistance—he and Mr. Lorraine—and when Mr. Lorraine fell down, exhausted, he fought the fire alone until he saved you, although his bravery, they say, will cost him his life.”
Before Waverley Osborne could reply to his wife’s words, there came a hurried rap upon the door. Sadie opened it, and Bayard Lorraine, still begrimed with the smoke and dust of the ruins, and with torn and water-soaked garments, hastily entered the room.
Fair uttered an irrepressible cry. He turned toward her, and their eyes met—met for the first time since that fatal night when she had almost been his bride, and when she had made upon her knees confession of the folly that had wrecked her life. She trembled with emotion as she met his grave, sweet glance, and stood like one rooted to the floor.