The stairs had not burned away; the fire seemed not to have reached them yet, and so she was able to toil slowly and painfully through the smoke up to the attic. It was a long and weary task, for the black smoke was thick and awful, and the red hot flames scorched her as she went. On—on! Was it hours or days since she started? On—on! The attic was reached at last, and blinded by the smoke, and gasping feebly for breath, Sister Angela threw open the door of her room.
The child was lying in its little cradle; it had just awakened, and was crying bitterly. The good sister flew to its side and lifted it in her arms. It was only a little babe—a sickly little creature, born of poor and unknown parents—but it was one of Christ's little ones, and this holy woman was about to die for its sake. She flew to the door of the room with the babe in her arms, held close to her breast, full of the divine mother-love which forms a part of the nature of all good women, and upon the threshold she came to a frightened halt. The smoke and flames filled the corridor, and beyond—beyond there loomed up a solid wall of fire, while smoke and flames wound around the doomed staircase and wrapped it in crimson folds.
For a moment the heroic woman stood, still holding the child in her arms—the child for whom and with whom she was about to die—her eyes fixed helplessly upon the flame-wreathed staircase, cut off from all hope. Then she went swiftly back to the room and over to the one window. She flung it open, and still clasping the child, stood there uttering piercing shrieks.
Some one heard her, and a ladder was swung up at once. Sister Angela drew forth her rosary, and with the child held close to her breast, began to pray, her face like the face of a saint reflected in the lurid light from the conflagration. The ladder was adjusted, but too late; the flames darted forth and seized it in deadly embrace. The whole house tottered now upon its foundations. Only the white face of the sister at the upper window, with the child in her arms. That picture will be remembered by those who saw it to their dying day. Only a poor, obscure Sister of Charity—a lowly life lived out amid the poor and the fallen and suffering. But who shall say that it was lived in vain?
And now another ladder was swung, but just as one of the brave and heroic firemen was about to step upon it and risk his own life, in a mad attempt to save the heroic woman above, the structure trembled violently, and the burning house gave way, the entire wing of the building falling with a horrible crash, and the white, saintly face at the upper window, with the babe upon her breast, the pale lips framing prayers, while the enraptured eyes gazed far above at that Heaven which she was so soon to enter, was seen no more—will never be seen again in this world.
Out in the cool night air Beatrix had managed to drag Keith, but at last he had fallen, faint and exhausted, to the ground, and Beatrix fell upon her knees at his side.
The first faint gleam of the early morning began to creep into the eastern sky, and still the crowd lingered about the smoking ruins, though there seemed no more to be done.
Beatrix was making up her mind to send for a cab in which to convey Keith to his home at old Bernard Dane's. It was the place for him to go, but she—she—must she seek refuge in that horrible place, the lepers' hospital, after all?