It was very dark and she could see nothing, but her foot touched the floor, and she knew that she was saved! Overcome with weakness, now that all danger was passed, she sank upon the floor, where she lay helpless and motionless for several minutes. But all at once a bright light flashed over her. She started up and looked out across the narrow space which she had so recently traversed, and saw fierce flames leaping all about the room she had just left and out through the window, as if in a frenzy over her escape; and, with a thrill of horror, she realized that the floor had fallen in! “This building will soon be in flames,” she thought; and, staggering to her feet, she resolved to make her way as quickly as possible to a place of safety. The light from the other house shone all about her and she found that she was in a large empty room. Making her way to the door she opened it and found herself in a narrow hall, and could faintly distinguish a stairway at its farther end. Groping her way to this, she descended the stairs to another hall, and following this she went down a second flight and realized that she was on the street floor. She found the door leading out, but it was of course locked and no key by which she could unfasten it. “I must go down to the basement and get out through one of the windows,” she said; and turning back, she felt her way to the stairs and so down into the regions below. Just as she reached the lower landing a terrible crash, mingled with startling shouts and cries, fell upon her ears, and for a moment her heart almost ceased its beating. “The walls of the house have fallen!” Salome murmured, wringing her hands and wondering if any one had perished in the terrible flames which she had so narrowly escaped. The stream of sparks and fire which arose high in the air, as the walls fell in, enabled her to see that she was in quite a good-sized kitchen. She sprang to one of the windows, unfastened it, and crept out, to find herself in the back yard, with sparks and cinders falling all about her, and with a great empty space on the right of her where her recent home had been. She sped across the yard, out through an open gate in a narrow court, and thence to a street running parallel with the one where the lodging-houses had been. It was very cold, a fine sleet was falling, and the street was wet and muddy. Salome, as we know, was but lightly clothed for such weather, and she soon began to suffer from the storm and a keen wind that was blowing, and wondered what she should do for shelter and a bed in which to spend the remainder of the night. The street seemed entirely deserted, and she was forlorn and sick at heart. It had occurred to her that perhaps it would have been better if she had perished in the fire; for it would have ended her sorrows. Chancing to glance up at the house she was passing, she saw a woman standing in the doorway, looking anxiously out toward the direction of the fire.