Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/201

 There was a short silence, Mehitable's mind grasping, refusing, seeking schemes for escape. Suddenly, Anthony Freeman spoke again.

"The others—ye said others were coming to our rescue!" Hopefully, he seemed to be listening.

Twas but a ruse!" groaned the girl. She turned upon him. "I must drag you, or we shall both be burned! I can pull you along the floor—I am strong! Roll yourself off from the cot, and I will take you beneath the arms! Thus!" And bending her lithe young back, as he obediently rolled on to the floor, she placed her arms around his chest and commenced to drag him backward.

How could she ever have thought him slender and tall, thought Mehitable despairingly! Why, he weighed pounds and pounds more than she had thought. He tried to help her by hitching himself; but she soon begged him to stop, saying that she could manage better if he made himself perfectly limp. Halfway to the door, three quarters of the way, inch by stubborn inch she conquered that long expanse of floor space. If only the smoke did not make her eyes smart so! Tears were now running down her cheeks. Freeman, hearing a pathetic sniff, spoke desperately:

"I wish ye would not try! Ah, I fear 'twill hurt ye!"

But Mehitable shook her head, gritted her teeth as she had earlier in the evening, after falling time