Next morning Paul’s letter fully decided me. It said that he would be at the station to meet me! He was expecting me, and I must not, on any account, fail him.
“Lil, wake up! Wake up!” I cried, shaking her by the arm. “I’m going to take the first train back to New York.”
Lil answered sleepily:
“Marion, you always were crazy.”
All of a sudden the room turned red on all sides of us, and I realized that it was on fire. The little stove had a pipe with an elbow in the wall, and when I put a match to the kindling, the flames must have crept up to the thin wooden walls from the elbow, and in an instant the wall had ignited. I had on only a nightdress. I seized the quilt off the bed, and threw it on the flames, but it seemed only to serve as fresh fuel. Lil was
And both shrieking we ran out into the hall.
crouched back on the bed, petrified with terror, and literally unable to move. Desperately screaming, “Fire, fire!” I seized the pitcher and flung it at the flames, and then somehow I grabbed hold of Lil by the hand, and both shrieking, we ran out into the hall. Then I fainted. When I came to, the fire was out, and the landlady and her son and husband and Lil were all standing over me, laughing and crying.
“Well,” said the man, “did you try to burn us out?” He turned to his wife, and said: “It’s a good job I got that insurance, eh?”