The things we do!

It is doubtful whether
those who spring from a burning building dread the fall--they dread
only that which is behind them.
As she now half-slid from the window, she grasped wildly at the
screen of ivy, and as fate would have it caught one of its greater
branches. It held fast, and she swung free from the sill, which
now she could never again regain. She clung desperately, blindly,
swung out; then felt the roots of the ivy above her rip free, one
after another, far up, almost to the cornice. Its whole thin
ladder broke free from the wall. She was flung into space. Almost
at that instant, her foot touched the light lattice of the lower
story. The ivy had crawled up the wall face and followed the
cornice up and over somewhere, over the edge of the eaves, finding
some sort of holding ground. It served to support her weight at
least until she felt the ladder underfoot. At this in turn she
clutched as she dropped lower, but frail and rotten as it was, it
supported her but slightly.


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