hopes.  And I felt—­nothing.  No sense, as I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will which nerved and restrained her.  I went on, and out unconscious.  Afterward she was unable to tell me how long she had been there.  It must have been for some minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of terror was the word “Suicide.”  It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at first; and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what followed, my instructions about the poison took on the voice of a ministering providence.  The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor had she recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of the disease.  But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass on my way to the telephone, and knew that the moment had come.  From what she told me later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my return, I piece together the events which so swiftly followed.

A wind had risen outside or Ned might have heard the footsteps sooner.  As it was, when he stepped out from behind the draperies of the upper window those of the lower window were still waving, but the swift figure had almost reached the desk.  The face was turned from him.  Even in that moment of astonishment he noticed that she carried her left arm close to her body, with a curious awkwardness.

“Hello!” he challenged.

She cried out sharply, and covered the remaining distance with a rush.  Her hand fell upon the box of pellets.  She turned, clutching that little box of desperate hopes to her bosom.

“Good God!  Virginia!” he exclaimed.  “Miss Kingsley!”

“Mr. Worth!  Was it you I heard?  Why—­how are you here?”

“This is my house.”

“I didn’t know.”  Keeping her eyes fixed upon him like a watchful animal, she slowly backed to interpose the table between herself and a possible interference.  Her arm, still stiffly pressed to her side, impeded her fumbling efforts to open the box.  Presently, however, the cover yielded.

He measured the chances of intervention, and abandoned the hope.  His brain hummed with a thousand conjectures, a thousand questions centering upon her obvious and preposterous purpose.  Suddenly, as her fingers trembled among the tablets, his thoughts steadied and his stratagem was formed.

“What do you want with my tonic?” he asked coolly.

“Tonic?  I—­I thought—­”

“You thought it was the poison.  Well, you’ve got the wrong box.  The poison box is in the drawer.”

“In the drawer,” she repeated.  She spoke in the mechanical voice of one desperately intent upon holding the mind to some vital project.  Her nerveless hands fumbled at the side of the desk.

He crossed quickly, caught up the box which she had just relinquished, and dropped it into his pocket.

“Oh!” she moaned, and stared at him with stricken and accusing eyes.  “Then it was the poison!”