The audience rushed for the doors while the actors leaped over the footlights in their mad scramble to escape.
Several women's voices took up the cry of fire and the place was in wild confusion.

Evidently the man who managed the lights had been too frightened to turn them on again, for the theater still remained in semi-darkness.
The four young people did not move while the audience was crowding out of the aisles.
"We might as well be suffocated as crushed," observed David.

"It's a much more comfortable death, and besides I can't smell any smoke." Grace smiled but was silent.
"I'm here at last," announced Anne's well-known voice behind them.
And there she was, still in her ragged stage dress, carrying her hat and coat on her arm.
"Why, Anne Pierson!" cried Nora, "I thought you were dead and gone." Anne laughed.
"Not dead," she said.

"But I would certainly have been gone in another half hour.

We needn't hurry," she continued.