University of Virginia Library

43. CHAPTER XLIII.
FIRE! FIRE!

“Will Dennis Fleet come forward?” cried Dr. Arten.
Very pale, and trembling with excitement, Dennis stepped
out before them all.

“Take heart, my young friend, I am not about to read
your death-warrant,” said the Doctor cheerily. “Permit
me to present you with this check for two thousand dollars,
and express to you what is of more value to the true
artist, our esteem and appreciation of your artistic merit.
May your brush ever continue to be employed in the
presentation of such noble, elevating thoughts; your
laurel crown of earth will change to the more unfading
one of heaven.”

And the good Doctor, quite overcome by this unusual
flight of eloquence, blew his nose vigorously and wiped
from his spectacles the moisture with which his own eyes
had bedewed them.

Dennis responded with a low bow, and was about to
retire; but his few friends, and indeed all who knew him,
pressed forward with their congratulations.

Foremost among these were the Professor and his wife.
Tears of delight fairly shone in Mrs. Learned's eyes as
she shook his hand again and again. Many others also
trooped up for an introduction, till he was quite bewildered
by strange names, and compliments that seemed
stranger still.

Suddenly a low, well-known voice at his side sent a
thrill to his heart and a rush of crimson to his face

“Will Mr. Fleet deign to receive my congratulations
also?”

He turned and met the deep blue eyes of Christine
Ludolph lifted timidly to his. But at once the association
that had long been uppermost in regard to her—the memory
of her supposed treatment of his mother—flashed
across him, and he replied with cold and almost stately
courtesy:

“The least praise or notice from Miss Ludolph would
be a most unexpected favor.”

She thought from his manner that he might as well
have said “unwelcome favor,” and with a sad disappointed
look she turned away.

Even in the excitement and triumph of the moment,
Dennis was oppressed by the thought that he had not
spoken as wisely as he might. Almost abruptly he broke
away and escaped to the solitude of his own room.

He did not think about his success. The prize lay
forgotten in his pocket-book. He sat in his arm-chair and
stared apparently at vacancy, but in reality at the picture
that he was sure Christine had painted. He went over
and over again with the nicest scrutiny all her actions in
the gallery, and now reproached himself bitterly for the
repelling answer he had given when she spoke to him.
He tried to regain his old anger and hardness in view of
her wrongs to him and his, but could not. The tell-tale
picture, and traces of sorrow and suffering in her face in
accord with it, had disarmed him. He said to himself,
and half believed, that he was letting his imagination run
away with his reason, but could not help it. At last he
seized his hat and hastened to the hotel where Mrs. Learned
was staying. She at once launched out into a strain

eulogistic and descriptive of her enjoyment of the whole
thing.

“I never was so proud of Chicago,” she exclaimed.
“It is the greatest city in the world. Only the other day
her streets were prairies. I believe my husband expected
to find buffalo and Indians just outside the town. But
see! already by its liberality and attention to Art, it
begins to vie with some of our oldest cities. But what is
the matter? You look so worried.”

“Oh, nothing,” said Dennis, coming out of his troubled,
abstracted manner.

With her quick intuition, Mrs. Learned at once divined
his thoughts, and said soon after, when her husband's back
was turned:

“All I can say is, that she was deeply, most deeply
affected by your picture, but she said nothing to me, more
than to express her admiration. My friend, you had better
forget her. They sail for Europe very soon; and besides,
she is not worthy of you.”

“I only wish I could forget her, and am angry with myself
that I cannot,” he replied, and soon after said “good-night.”

Wandering aimlessly through the streets, he almost
unconsciously made his way to the north side, where the
Ludolph mansion was situated. Then the impulse to go to
it came over him, and for the first time since the evening,
long before, when, stunned and wounded by his bitter disappointment
he had gone away apparently to die, he again
was at the familiar place. The gas was burning in Mr.
Ludolph's library. He went around on the side street
(for the house was on a corner), and a light shone
from what he knew was Christine's studio. She undoubtedly
was there. Even such proximity excited him
strangely, and in his morbid state he felt that he could

almost kiss the feeble rays that shimmered out into the
darkened street. In his secret soul he utterly condemned
his folly, but promised himself that he would be weak no
longer after that one night. The excitements of the day
had rather thrown him off his balance.

Suddenly he heard, sweet and clear, though softened
by distance and intervening obstacles, the same weird, pathetic
ballad that had so moved him when Christine sang
it at Le Grand Hotel, the evening of the day on which
he had pointed out the fatal defect in her picture. At
short intervals, kindred and plaintive songs followed each
other.

“There is nothing exultant or hopeful about those
strains,” he said to himself. “For some reason she is not
happy. Oh, that I might have one frank conversation with
her, and find out the whole truth. But it seems that I
might just as well ask for a near look at yonder star that
glimmers so distantly. For some reason, I cannot believe
her so utterly heartless as she has seemed; and then
mother has prayed. Can it all end as a miserable dream?”

Late at night the music ceased, and the room was darkened.

Little dreamed Christine that her plaintive minstrelsy
had fallen on so sympathetic an ear, and that the man who
seemingly had repelled her slightest acquaintance had shivered
long hours in the cold, dark street.

So the Divine friend waits and watches, even till the
dews of morning fall, while we, in ignorance and unbelief,
pay no heed. Stranger far, He waits and watches when
we know, but yet, unrelenting, ignore His presence.

With heavy steps, Dennis wearily plodded homeward.
He was oppressed by that deep despondency which follows
great fatigue and excitement.

In the southwest he saw a brilliant light. He heard

the alarm-bells, and knew there was a fire, but to have
aroused him that night it must have come scorchingly
close. He reached his dark little room, threw himself
dressed on the couch, and slept till nearly noon the next
day.

When he awoke, and realized how the best hours of the
Sabbath had passed, he started up much vexed with himself,
and after a brief retrospect said:

“Such excitements as those of yesterday are little better
than a debauch, and I must shun them hereafter. God
has blessed and succeeded me, and it is but a poor return I
am making. However my unfortunate attachment ends,
nothing is gained by moping around in the dead of night.
Henceforth let there be an end to such folly.”

He made a careful toilet and sat down to his Sabbath-school
lesson.

To his delight he again met Mrs. Learned, who came to
visit her old mission-class. She smiled most approvingly,
and quoted:

“`He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful
also in much.'”

He went home with her, and in the evening they all
went to church together.

He cried unto the Lord for strength and help, and
almost lost consciousness of the service in his earnest
prayer for true manhood and courage to go forward to
what he feared would be a sad and lonely life. And
the answer came; for a sense of power and readiness to do
God's will, and withal a strange hopefulness, inspired him.
Trusting in the Divine strength, he felt that he could meet
his future now, whatever it might be.

Again the-alarm bells were ringing, and there was a
light in the southwest.

“There seems to be a fire over there in the direction of

my poor German friend's house. You remember Mrs.
Bruder. I will go and call on them, I think. At any rate
I should call, for it is due to her husband that I won the
prize,” and they parted at the churchdoor.

Christine soon left the gallery with a veil drawn over
her face. Her gay friends tried in vain to rally her, and
rather wondered at her manner, but said:

“She is so full of moods of late, you can never know
what to expect.”

Her father, with a few indifferent words, left her for his
place of business. His hope and plan still was to prevent
her meeting Dennis and keep up the estrangement that
existed.

Christine went home and spent the long hours in bitter
revery, which at last she summed up by saying:

“I have stamped out his love by my folly, and now his
words, `I despise you,' express the whole wretched
truth.” Then clenching her little hands she added with
livid lips and a look of scorn, “If I can never help him
(and therefore no one) win earthly greatness, I will never
be the humble recipient of it from another. Since his
second picture cannot be true of my experience, neither
shall the first.”

And she was one to keep such a resolve. The evening
was spent, as we know, in singing alone in her studio,
this being her favorite, indeed her only way of giving
expression to her feelings. Very late she sought her bed
to find but little sleep.

The day of rest brought no rest to her, suggested no
hope, no sacred privilege of seeking Divine help to bear
up under life's burdens. To her it was a relic of superstition,
at which she chafed as interfering with the usual
routine of affairs. She awoke with a headache, and a long
miserable day she found it. Sabbath night she determined

to have sleep, and therefore took an opiate and retired
early.

Mr. Ludolph sat in his library trying to construct some
plan by which Christine could be sent to Germany at once.

When Dennis reached the neighborhood of the fire he
found it much larger than he supposed, and when he
entered Harrison Street, near where Mrs. Bruder lived,
discovered that only prompt action could save the family.
The streets were fast becoming choked with fugitives and
teams, and the confusion threatened to develop into panic
and wide-spread danger. The fire was but a block away
when he rushed up-stairs to the floor which the Bruders
occupied. From the way that blazing brands were flying
he knew that there was not a moment to spare.

He found Mrs. Bruder startled, anxious, but in no way
comprehending the situation.

“Quick!” cried Dennis, “waken and dress the children—pack
up what you can lay your hands on and carry
—you have no time to do anything more.”

“Ah! mine Gott! vat you mean?”

“Do as I say—there's no time to explain. Here
Ernst, help me,” and Dennis snatched up one child and
commenced dressing it before it could fairly wake.
Ernst took up another and followed his example. Mrs.
Bruder, recovering from her bewilderment, hastily gathered
a few things together, saying in the meantime:

“Surely you don't tink our home burn up?”

“Yes, my poor friend, in five minutes more we must all
be out of this building.”

“Oh, den come dis minute! Let me save de childer,”
and throwing a blanket around the youngest the frightened
woman rushed downstairs followed by Ernst and his little
brother, while Dennis hastened with the last child and the
bundle.

Their escape was none too prompt, for the blazing
embers were falling to that degree in the direct line of the
fire as to render it very unsafe. But though their progress
was necessarily slow, from the condition of the streets, the
breadth of the fire was not great at this point, and they soon
reached a position to the west and windward that was safe.
Putting the family in charge of Ernst, and telling them to
continue westward, Dennis rushed back, feeling that many
lives might depend upon stout hands and brave hearts
that night. Moreover he was in that state of mind that
made him court rather than shun danger.

He had hardly left his humble friends before Mrs. Bruder
stopped, put her hand on her heart and cried:

“O Ernst! O Gott forgive me! dat I should forget
him—your fader's picture. I must go back.”

“O moder, no! you are more to us than the picture.”
The woman's eyes were wild and excited, and she cried
vehemently: “Dat picture saved mine Berthold life—yes,
more, more, him brought back his artist soul. Vithout
him ve vould all be vorse dan dead. I can no live vithout
him. Stay here,” and with the speed of the wind the
devoted wife rushed back to the burning street, up the
stairs, already crackling and blazing, to where the lovely
landscape smiled peacefully in the dreadful glare, with its
last rich glow of beauty. She tore it from its fastenings,
pressed her lips fervently against it, regained the street,
but with dress on fire. She staggered forward a few steps
in the hot stifling air and smoke, and then fell upon her
burden. Spreading her arms over it, to protect it even in
death, the mother's heart went out in agony toward her
children.

“Ah merciful Gott! take care of dem,” she sighed, and
the prayer and the spirit that breathed it went up to heaven
together.