Through fire to fortune Author:Alexander Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Feeling profoundly the difficulties and dangers of the death and resurrection to which she was disposed to commit herself, Cara Leigh knew she sho... more »uld not be able to resist the impulse which impelled her to dare them, and instinctively imagination began to devise the methods she should adopt to cut off all connection with the past. For the moment she had money, but in the fire her entire wardrobe had been consumed. How hard she had worked to collect a neat and sufficient supply of clothing! It would be long before she could replace it. Then how should she find employment without a reference, without a recommendation? Still the idea haunted her. Meantime, where should she find shelter? It must be towards morning. It seemed many hours since she had first noticed that thick, evil- smelling smoke forcing its way through the chinks and crannies of the door. How she hoped those poor victims had been stifled before they suffered! But the question of shelter drove them from her mind. Then she remembered that a little lower down the street was a deep doorway, or porch, used by a photographer who owned the house to display several large stands full of specimen portraits. There she might hidetill daylight. Then, even then, it would not be too late to go to her stepmother's abode, which was far away in Islington, and But no! Freed from that vampire of a woman, she found the idea of beginning life afresh had taken possession of her, and she pressed on. Her observation had been correct. The photographer's porch afforded ample shelter. Moreover, the bench or ledge on which his cases rested during the day afforded her a seat. Here, crouched in a corner, she steadily awaited the light. In earnest thought, scanning the future and its possibilities, time slipped by. No doub...« less