ant--"

His voice broke in, not with the burst of praise and thanksgiving she
had looked for, but only to say abruptly and anti-climacterically:

"I can't hear you. Will you say that again?"

However, but few words were needed, after all, to ring this climax.
Carlisle said, slowly and distinctly:

"I say I want you to tell Mr. Dalhousie now--and his father, too.
To-night, if you wish."

Then there was a desolating silence, out of which she heard something
far off like a man groaning.

"Hello!" she called sharply. "Are you there?"

"Where are you, Miss Heth?" was Dr. Vivian's reply; and his voice was
like the voice of the man who had groaned....

"Are you in your room at the hotel? Is your mother with you there?"

Singular words these, from the receiver of confidences and high favors.
There fell upon Cally a nameless fear.

"N-no--I'm alone--Why, what--"

"Could I speak to your mother a moment--first? I have some bad news. It
would be better--"

"No--tell me! My mother's at dinner. I--what are you talking about?..."

Had he betrayed her already, then? Was the town now ringing with her
name? Had Colonel Dalhousie ...

Quite distinctly, though he evidently was not addressing her, she heard
the man's hard voice say: "This cannot be borne."

And then in a different voice, there came these words over the miles
from Meeghan's Grocery:

"Miss Heth;--I didn't see you when I should have--and now we are just
too late. I can't reach Dal now."

"You--don't mean?..."

"He is dead."

_"Dead!"_

And it was this girl's shame, the fruit of her long fear, that her first
feeling was one of base relief. So works Nature's first law. Dal was
dead; all was settled; there was nothing to tell now. And then, as by
the turning of a corner, she came front to front with a sudden horror,
and there unrolled before her a moment of blackness....

"You must not blame yourself too hard," came the distant voice, dropping
out of space like the sentences of destiny. "It's ... cruel, the way
it's happened. But you'll always know you had the courage and the will
to set him free, when you might--"

Carlisle's hand clenched the edge of the little table where she sat.

"Tell me," said her voice, pitifully faint. "Did he ... I--must
know--Did he ...?"

There was a roaring in her ears, but through it the words came clear as
flame:

"He went out of his mind. I know that. That could not be foreseen. Not
waiting ... he took his own li