Lucile, as she stood there watching it, felt a thousand hitherto unexperienced emotions sweep over her. But at last she came to rest with one terrible fact bearing down upon her very soul. Tyler street was just beyond this conflagration. Who could tell when the fire would reach the mysterious tumble-down cottage with its aged occupant? She thought of something else, of the books she might long since have returned to their rightful owners and had not.
“Now they will burn and I will never be able to explain,” she told herself. “Somehow I must get through!”
In her excitement she lifted the rope and started forward. A heavy hand was instantly laid on her shoulders.
“Y’ can’t go over there.”
“I must.”
“Y’ can’t.”
The policeman thrust her gently back behind the rope and drew it down before her.
“I must go,” she told herself. “Oh, I must! I must!”
CHAPTER XXIII
INSIDE THE LINES
“Come on,” Lucile said, pulling at Florence’s arm. “We’ve got to get there. It must be done. For everything that must be done there is always a way.”