Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/203



UT some good fairy must have decreed that they were not to perish by fire! Anthony Freeman, not knowing this, had made a brave effort to help himself and Mehitable by working himself over to her motionless form and trying to shove it toward the door. But looking at the door, he had groaned, for Mehitable, for some unaccountable reason, had closed it behind her upon entering. It had seemed to mock him, because with his hands tied behind him, he had not been able to open it!

Well, they must escape by the open door in the rear, he had told himself! Give them time enough, please Heaven, and they could make it! This had been denied them, however, for glancing up, he had seen that the stairs were beginning to smoulder, that a thread of flame had already licked its way across the top step.

Anthony Freeman had worked frantically, then. Grunting, pushing that inanimate body of Mehitable's before him, he had gone only half a yard or