The next instant the roof of the building fell in, leaving only the outer walls standing. Lord Chester had saved a life that but for his bravery must have perished in the raging flames. Earle Winans pressed forward to his friend's assistance with a pang of keen remorse as he remembered how he had tried to restrain his friend from that perilous undertaking. "How little I dreamed that a human being was in deadly peril within the house," he thought as he gazed curiously at the girl his friend had rescued from such an awful fate. His dark eyes noted the golden hair all tossed and tangled in a curly mass, the closed eyes, the waxen fair face in its pallid beauty. Then a loud cry burst from his lips: "Oh, Heaven! it is my missing sister--little Precious!" And he reeled and would have fallen but for the restraining arm of a stranger. Water was poured on his face and he quickly revived from his momentary faintness. He knelt by the silent form of the unconscious girl, crying in anguish: "It is Precious! my little sister! Oh, do not tell me she is dead." A physician pushed through the crowd and made a hasty examination. His face was very grave. "She is not dead, but her unconsciousness is very deep," he said. "If it is a simple swoon she may revive, but if asphyxiated by the smoke and heat, as I greatly fear, she will very likely soon expire." Lord Chester, recovering from his momentary exhaustion, heard their words and looked with a bitter heart-pang at the face of Precious. Never before had he gazed at that face, yet there came a swift despair at thought of her death--a swift despair that blotted out all memory of Ethel's sparkling beauty that such a little while ago had charmed him so. "We must have a carriage and take her home," cried Earle huskily, then wrung his friend's hand and thanked him for the rescue of his sister. "From this hour you are dear to me as a brother," he cried with deep emotion. So it happened that while Ethel sat up in bed staring with wild eyes into a possible future that held no lovely sister for a rival, a carriage was pausing at the door that held Earle Winans, his unconscious sister, and a physician, and presently there came ringing to Ethel's ear the long cry of anguish wrung from a mother's heart while bending over her dead. Ethel started and listened in terror. What did it mean, that long, low cry of grief in her mother's voice? Then Hetty Wilkins rushed in, pale and tearful, crying out: "Oh, Miss Ethel, such dreadful news! They have bought Miss Precious home dead." But from behind her came Earle Winans, and he exclaimed angrily: "Hetty, you are a cruel girl to frighten Ethel so. You had no business to come to her with such news. My mother sent me to break it to her gently. Ethel, dear, do not sob so bitterly. We have brought Precious home, but a little life lingers still and we hope she may not die."