"I am mad!
The torture of unnumbered hours is o'er,
The strong cord is broken, and my heart
Riots in free delirium! Oh, Heaven!
I struggled with it, but it mastered me!
I fought against it, but it beat me down!
I prayed, I wept, but Heaven was deaf to me,
And every tear rolled backward on my heart,
To blast and poison!"—George Henry Boker.
A crowd soon collected and the fire engines quickly came upon the scene.
Streams of water began to play on the burning house, but to no avail. The fire had made too much headway to be checked now. The old ramshackle building was doomed. In the large crowd that had collected were two very elegant-looking young men—Earle Winans and Lord Chester.
The two young men, although acquainted but a few days, had become fast friends.
It was the nobleman's deep solicitude over the fate of Precious that had first drawn Earle toward him. Lord Chester's services were always ready in any new plan for finding Precious; he was as eager as Earle himself in the search.
The Winans family believed that all this zeal was for the sake of Ethel, whom the nobleman had seemed to admire so much that gossip said he would certainly make her Lady Chester at no distant date.
So Earle had taken the handsome young nobleman warmly into his heart and confidence.
They had been walking together that chilly afternoon, several blocks away from the place, when the light of the burning building drew them to follow the crowd to the spot.
They arrived but a few moments after Ethel had turned away from the dreadful scene, hardening her jealous heart against the voice of accusing conscience, and answering to its reproaches: "I tried to save her, and it was through her own cowardice she perished."