Ah, Ethel, could the straining gaze of those somber eyes have pierced the shadows of the gloomy twilight they would have beheld a sight to blast them with its surprise.
Down the ladder came Lord Chester bearing the unconscious form of golden-haired Precious, whom Ethel had forsaken, and who never would have been saved but for the devotion of the faithful mastiff, noble Kay.
The shouts that rose from the crowd, as Lord Chester came down with the girl in his arms and the brave mastiff leaped from the window might almost have reached Ethel's ears, they were so loud and ringing.
Lord Chester was so blind and dizzy from the heat and smoke that as soon as his burden was drawn from his arms he sank exhausted to the ground.
The next instant the roof of the building fell in, leaving only the outer walls standing. Lord Chester had saved a life that but for his bravery must have perished in the raging flames.
Earle Winans pressed forward to his friend's assistance with a pang of keen remorse as he remembered how he had tried to restrain his friend from that perilous undertaking.
"How little I dreamed that a human being was in deadly peril within the house," he thought as he gazed curiously at the girl his friend had rescued from such an awful fate.
His dark eyes noted the golden hair all tossed and tangled in a curly mass, the closed eyes, the waxen fair face in its pallid beauty. Then a loud cry burst from his lips:
"Oh, Heaven! it is my missing sister—little Precious!"