"Rescued!" cried Mrs. Mencke, eagerly. "William," turning to her husband, "do you hear? How was she rescued?"
"Perhaps I should not have spoken with quite so much confidence," corrected the doctor. "But the young lady to whom I refer had with her a music-roll upon the clasp of which the letters 'V. D. H.' were engraved."
"That must have been Violet," said Mrs. Mencke. "She went to the city that afternoon to take her music lesson at four o'clock."
"Then she was saved by a young man—a Mr. Wallace Richardson—in the recent accident on the inclined plane. Mr. Richardson was severely injured, but he has been able to give an account of how he prevented the young lady from being dashed to pieces like many of the other victims," Doctor Norton returned.
He then proceeded to relate what Wallace had told him had occurred during those few horrible moments when that ill-fated car was plunging at such a fearful rate toward its doom.
Mrs. Mencke appeared to be greatly affected by the thrilling account; but her phlegmatic husband listened to the recital with a stolidity which betrayed either a strange indifference or a wonderful control over his nerves and sympathies.
"Oh! it is the most wonderful thing in the world that she was not killed outright," Mrs. Mencke remarked, with a shiver of horror, "and we have been very anxious. You say that she is seriously ill?" she questioned, in conclusion.
"Yes; the shock to her system has been a serious one, madame," the physician replied, "and, although there is not a scratch nor a bruise upon her, she is very ill and delirious at the home of this brave young carpenter to whom she owes so much."
"Young!" repeated Mrs. Mencke, remarking the adjective for the first time, and looking somewhat annoyed. "How old is he?"
"About twenty-three or twenty-four, I should judge," was the reply.