will act like this,
what can he expect?"

Glancing upward at the windows of her mother's room as she entered her
gate she was surprised not to see there a loving face on the watch for
her coming. She opened the front door and the silence of the house
struck her heart with a chill of apprehension.

"Mother! Bella!" she called, a flutter of alarm in her tones. "Where
are you?"

"Miss Harry! Miss Harry!" came Delia's voice in response. "Do come
here, quick, quick!"

She rushed to the dining room and saw her sister stretched upon the
lounge and Delia kneeling beside her. On the floor was an empty bottle
bearing a death's head and cross-bones and "strychnine" upon its
label. She herself had bought it on their physician's prescription, as
a tonic for Mrs. Marne, only a few days before.

"What is it, Delia? Did she take that poison?" gasped Henrietta.

"Yes'm, she took it, the whole bottle full. I heard her scream in the
hall an' soon she come flyin' in here, an' she snatched up that bottle
an' swallowed all them pills before I knew what she was doin'. Then
she tumbled down an' I grabbed her an' stuck me finger down her
throat. She fought me and tried to push me away, but I wouldn't an' I
kep' on stickin' me finger way down an' after a while she spewed it
all up. Oh, the dear an' lovely darlin', an' her so merry an' happy
all the time! She won't die now, will she, Miss Harry?"

Henrietta had hastily mixed an emetic and together they forced it down
her throat.

"I hope she won't, Delia--I hope you've saved her. But we must have a
doctor now, at once. Run, Delia, and send the first person you can
find as fast as he can go for a doctor to come immediately--say it's a
case of life and death."

Delia rushed away and Henrietta, though her heart was full of anxiety
about her mother, hovered over Isabella, who lay with closed eyes and
ghastly face, moaning but seemingly unconscious.

Presently, fearful of what the silence of the house might mean with
regard to its other occupant, she left her sister and hurried
upstairs. There she found Mrs. Marne unconscious on the floor. But she
knew what should be done and met the crisis with quick and capable
action. And in a few moments more she heard in the hall below the
voice of their own physician, whom the maid had luckily encountered
nearby upon the street.

But scarcely had she supported Mrs. Marne to her bed when a shriek in
Delia's voice, followed by the cry of "Doctor! Mi