A few questions explained to the physician the condition of Mr. Bray, and his own observation revealed the condition of the tenement.
"He will be better off at the hospital. You are about wrecked here, I see. That young man who called me said he would ring up the City Hospital."
The girls were greatly troubled; but Aunt Jane was practical.
"Of course, that's the best place for him," she said. "Why! this flat isn't fit for a well person to stay in, let alone a sick man, until it is cleared up. I shall take you girls out with me to my boarding house for the night. Then--we'll see."
The physician brought Mr. Bray to his senses; but the poor man knew nothing about the fire, and was too weak to object when they told him he was to be removed to the hospital for a time.
The ambulance came and the young interne and the driver brought in the stretcher, covered Mr. Bray with a gray blanket, and took him away. The interne told the girls they could see their father in the morning and he, too, said it was mainly exhaustion that had brought about the sudden attack.
Aunt Jane had been stalking about the sloppy flat--from the ruined kitchen to the front window.
"Shut and lock that kitchen window, and lock the doors, and we'll go out and find a lodging," she said, briefly. "You girls can bring a bag for the night. Mine's at the station hard by; I'm glad I didn't bring it up here."
It was when Lyddy shut and locked the kitchen window that she remembered the young man again. The plank had been removed, the laboratory window was closed, and the place unlighted.
"I guess he has some of the instincts of a gentleman, after all," she told herself. "He didn't come back to bother me after doing what he could to help."
Two hours later the Bray girls were seated in their aunt's comfortable room at a boarding house on a much better block than the one on which the tenement stood. Aunt Jane had ordered up tea and toast, and was sipping the one and nibbling the other contentedly before a grate fire.
"This is what I call comfort," declared the old lady, who still kept her bonnet on--nor would she remove it save to change it for a nightcap when she went to bed.
"This is what I call comfort. A pleasant room in a house where I have no responsibilities, and enough noise outside to assure me that I am in a live town. My goodness me! when Hammond came along and wanted to marry me, and I knew I could leave Hillcrest and never have to go back----Well, I just about jumped down that man's throat I was so eager to say 'Yes!' Marry him? I'd ha' married a Choctaw Injun, if he'd promised to take me to the city."