When Mrs. Van Camp had left the red brick house with the flower-filled windows Sybil had raised herself from her pillows and had struck the small gong-bell on the stand by her bed sharply--twice--three times. And Stivers called up to her: "In a moment, Miss Sybil!" but did not appear; and again the gong sounded, and at last the woman came with a cup of black coffee in her hand. "It's no use frowning, Miss--no use waving your hand! That doctor gave you an opiate last night, and now you just--no! I won't listen to what you want until you swallow down this coffee--to steady your nerves. No! Miss--no! He's not gone yet--there's no 'extra' out at all. That's some pedler you hear. Take it down now, all of it. There! You'll be the better for that. Now, what was it you wanted?" And Sybil fastened her woful eyes on the woman's face, and begged: "Mrs. Stivers, will you bring a jeweler here to my room, as quickly as possible?" "A--a--what?" stammered Stivers, "a jeweler--no, I can't leave you to go away over----" "But," the girl interrupted, "anyone will do--any working jeweler. Right in the next avenue there is a little shop--you won't be gone more than fifteen minutes. You must, indeed you _must_!" "O-o-oh!" thought Stivers; "she wants to get rid of that opal, now all the damage is done." Aloud she warned: "If you're going to try to do any business, you don't want a little tu-penny-ha'penny creature like that to deal with. Well! well! I'm going--but suppose the bell rings? Yes, I'll hurry!" White and worn-looking, Sybil fell back upon the pillow, her tumbled dark hair clouding over her brows, her hot eyes staring before her, and every nerve tense, waiting for the "E-e-extray! e-e-extray!" at whose sound her world of love would crumble to nothingness. Had she or had she not heard Stewart gasp "The word--the _ruby_--?" If she had, then the word must have had an immense significance for him, and suddenly her dumb, inert despair was broken by an intense longing to know what the word was that even rapidly approaching death had not driven from his recollection. For Sybil did not try to deceive herself. Anyone hearing that awful breathing must have realized that it meant a pierced lung, and she had been hopeless from the first. She felt that the explanation given by Thrall and Roberts was not true--that the shooting had not been accidental; but she supposed it had been the motiveless act of a drink-maddened man. For Jim Roberts had never breathed a hint--drunk or sober--of the miserable fate of his young sister, still less of his piteous passion of love for herself. So, in the absence of reasonable motive, she charged the dreadful deed to drunkenness. Stivers had eagerly seized upon the cue given by rumor, and declared that Sybil had been shopping, and was going toward the theatre, when, etc., etc.; and she had carefully drilled her mistress in this story, before the arrival of Mrs. Van Camp.