People found themselves wandering in the woods, half awake
and half dressed, having descended from the balconies and
leaped from the windows, — they knew not how. Others
on the upper floor neither awoke nor moved from their beds,
hut were suffocated without a cry. From the first an in-
stinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating the confla-
gration possessed them all j to a blind, automatic feeling to
flee the building was added the slow mechanism of the




in



THBEE PAHTNKR3



Bomnamljiilist; delicate women walked speecblessljj but
securely J along ledges and roofs from whicb they would have
fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. There was
no crowding or impeding haste in their dumb exodus. It
was only when Mrs, Barker awoke disheveled in the court-
yard, and with an hystericd outcry rushed back into the
hotel J that there was any sign of ]>amc,

Mrs. Horn castle, who was standing near, fully dressed
as from some night-long vigil, quickly followed her. The
half-frantic woman was making directly for her own apart-
ments j whose windows those in the courtyard could see were
already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs. Horncastle stopped
with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It had just
flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told her only a few
hours before that Sta had been removed with the nurse to
the upper floor ! It was not the forgotten child that Mrs.
