Dolly went into another room to arrange the clothes she had brought her mistress, and to admire herself occasionally in a long pier glass, and so the time slipped past, and in the gloaming Roma's voice called faintly: "Dolly!" "Yes, miss." Roma was standing up, very pale, very tragic-looking, by the couch, in her hands a letter and a tiny vial of colored liquid. "Dolly, you are to take this letter to Mr. Devereaux and ask his sister to come with him to my room. Tell them both I have swallowed poison, and shall be dead in a few minutes!" Dolly snatched the letter and ran shrieking from the room, while Roma sank back on the couch, her eyes half closed, her face death-white, the vial of poison, half drained, clasped in her fingers. Devereaux tore open the letter, and read the single line it contained: "I cannot live without your love! I have taken poison!" He and Mrs. Carrington almost flew upstairs after hurriedly telephoning for a physician. They knelt by her couch, reproaching her for her rashness, declaring that they had sent for a physician to save her life. "It is useless. I will not take an antidote. I am determined to die!" she replied stubbornly, and looked at Devereaux reproachfully, while Lyde caught her hands, exclaiming: "Oh, Jesse, why couldn't you love her and make up with her, so that she needn't have been driven to this?" Encouraged by this outburst of sympathy, Roma whispered audibly in her ear: "If he would only make me his wife, I could die happy!" "Do you hear?" nodded Lyde to her brother. "Yes." "I have dreamed of it so long. I have loved him so well, I cannot be happy even beyond the grave unless I can call him my husband once before I die!" sobbed Roma piteously, and by her labored breathing and spasms of pain it seemed as if each moment must be her last. "Give her her dying wish lest she haunt you!" whispered the nervous, frightened Lyde. Roma's sufferings grew so extreme that his reluctance yielded to pity. He bowed assent, and hurried from the room to summon a minister. The physician entered in haste, but Roma repulsed him. "Stand back! I will not take an antidote! I am already dying!" she screamed. He caught the vial from her fingers. "How much have you taken?" "The bottle was full--and you see what is left!" "Then God have mercy on your soul. I am powerless to save you from your own rash act, poor girl, even if you permitted me to try. Why have you done this dreadful thing?" "A quarrel with my lover!" "Yes, it is true," sobbed Lyde. "She and Jesse quarreled, and she rashly swallowed the poison." She added chokingly: "They--they--are going to be married presently. Please stay to the ceremony." Jesse Devereaux entered at that moment with a minister. Roma was moaning in pain, her eyes half closed. "Can you do nothing, doctor?" "Alas, no! She must be dead in a few minutes!" He bent down and took her hand. "Are you ready, Roma?" "Oh, yes, yes! Heaven bless you, dear!"