So speaking, she clearly signified her annoyance at the complete failure of this scene, as a scene, though she knew that she had the trump card of death up her sleeve, and that in less than ten minutes the inherent tragedy of it all would be proved to both these scoffers in the most effectual way. “Listen,” she said to them again, and her voice was very poignant and low. “I will tell you. I asked a man, who had promised me that he would do anything in the world for me, that I might ask him to do, to give me the means of death in an envelope sealed, so that I might use it if the burden of life became too great for me to bear. I told him that the mere knowledge that I could end it at any given time would help me to bear it. I did not tell him that I meant to use what he gave me at once, I perhaps did not--quite--but this morning in the fog--I felt it all so hopeless--so sad--and the future as black as the present, that I drank it off all at once. That was an hour ago--and in another hour I shall be dead.” “Who do you say gave it you?” Rivers asked quickly, when she had finished. “Dr. André. Now please don’t--bother me any more.” She sank back--she had literally grown ashen. “Quick! Go and fetch him! Three floors below!” said Egidia to Rivers, in a frenzied whisper. “But he can’t have been such a devil!” she ejaculated, as the door closed on Rivers. Mrs. Elles’s strange and indubitable pallor it was that frightened her. * * * * * In ten minutes Rivers came back again, followed by Dr. André. The latter was smiling, and his smile did not fade away, when confronted with the serious face of Egidia, and the prostrate form of his victim. Mrs. Elles had not spoken a word during Rivers’ absence, she appeared to have sunk into a state of coma. When Dr. André entered she opened her eyes wide, and it was on him, not on Rivers, that her gaze fell. “Dear lady!” he said, going up to her, and taking one of her little helpless hands. “Forgive me! I have betrayed you!” “What?” she said, and her voice had sunk to a whisper. “I have taken what you gave me. Tell them....” “All right!” he said, in his foreign accent, gently stroking the hand which she abandoned to him. “I have given you a mauvais quart d’heure, I admit, but I have not killed you. Could you or any one else seriously imagine that I should be accessory to sending a sweet woman like you out of the world?” “You have very nearly frightened her out of it!” Egidia, to whom the doctor’s flowery language did not appeal, remarked.