would have pulled down the shade, but the boy's actions stayed her hand. He leaped back from the window and disappeared--for just a moment. Then he staggered into view, thrust a long and wide plank through his open window, and, bearing down upon it, shoved hard and fast, thrusting the novel bridge up to the sill of the window above Lyddy's own. "What under the sun does that fellow mean to do?" gasped the girl, half tempted to raise her own window so as to look up the narrow shaft between the two buildings.

"He never would attempt to cross over to their flat," thought Lyddy. "That would be quite too--ri--dic--u--lous----"

The youth was adjusting the plank. At first he could not steady it upon the sill above Lyddy's kitchen window. And how dangerous it would be if he attempted to "walk the plank."

And then there was a roaring sound above, a glare of light, a crash of glass and a billow of black smoke suddenly--but only for a moment--filled the space between the two buildings!

The girl almost fell to the floor. She had always been afraid of fire, and it had been ever in her mind since they moved into this big tenement house. And now it had come without her knowing it!

While she thought the young man to be trying to enter into a flirtation with the girls in the flat above, the house was afire! No wonder so many people had seemed running at the corner when she looked out of the front window. The ladder-truck had swung around into the avenue without her seeing it. Doubtless the street in front of the tenement was choked with fire-fighting apparatus.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Lyddy, reeling for the moment.

Then she dashed for the bedroom where her father lay. Smoke was sifting in from the hall through the cracks about the ill-hung door. "Father! Father!" she gasped.

He lay on the bed, as still as though sleeping. But the noise above should have aroused him by this time, had her own shrill cry not done so. Yet he did not move.

Lyddy leaped to the bedside, seizing her father's shoulder with desperate clutch. She shook his frail body, and the head wagged from side to side on the pillow in so horrible a way--so lifeless and helpless--that she was smitten with terror.

Was he dead? He had never been like this before, she was positive. She tore open his waistcoat and shirt and placed her hand upon his heart. It was beating--but, oh, how feebly!

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