e to her
breast. 'You are crazed to-night; to-morrow you will feel differently.'

"But the fixed set look of her bleak face gave me no hope. 'I shall never
feel differently. If I do not end it to-night, I shall do so soon. When a
heart like mine goes down, it goes down forever,' I could only shudder. I
did not know what to do, or which way to turn. She stood between me and
the door, and her presence was terrible. 'When I came here,' she said, 'I
brought a bottle of cordial with me and three glasses. I brought a little
phial of poison too, once ordered for sickness. I expected to find Elwood
here. If I had, I meant to drop the poison into one glass, and then fill
them all up with the cordial. We should have drunk, each one of us his
glass, and one of us would have fallen. I did not care which, you or
Elwood or myself. But he is not here, and the cast of the die is between
us two, unless you wish a certainty, Carmel,--in which case I will pour
out but one glass and drink that myself.'

"She was in a fever, now, and desperate. Death was in the room; I felt it
in my lifted hair, and in her strangely drawn face. If I screamed, who
would hear me? I never thought of the telephone, and I doubt if she would
have let me use it then. The power she had always exerted over me was
very strong in her at this moment; and not till afterwards did it cross
my mind that I had never asked her how she got to the house, or whether
we were as much alone in the building as I believed.

"'Shall I drink alone?' she repeated, and I cried out 'No'; at which her
hand went to her breast, as I had so long expected, and I saw the glitter
of a little phial as she drew it forth.

"'Oh, Adelaide!' I began; but she heeded me no more than the dead.

"On leaving home, she had put on a long coat with pockets and this coat
was still on her, and the pockets gaping. Thrusting her other hand into
one of these, she drew out a little flask covered with wicker, and set it
on a stand beside her. Then she pulled out two small glasses, and set
them down also, and then she turned her back. I could hear the drop, drop
of the liquor; and, dark as the room was, it seemed to turn darker, till
I put out my hands like one groping in a sudden night. But everything
cleared before me when she turned around again. Features set like hers
force themselves to be seen.

"She advanced, a glass in either hand. As she came, the floor swayed,
and the walls seemed to bow together; bu