'Heard what?' she said wearily. 'I have only just come back from the lodge. I have heard nothing.' She was not very anxious to hear Maria's news. She thought it was one of the old things that was always happening: someone had passed an exam., or someone had been plucked, or someone had broken down. She was so used to these things that she did not care a straw which it was, and she began drawing off her gloves, and threw her hat down on a chair. When she had done this she became aware that Maria was looking at her with a strange pity in her eyes. 'And you have not heard?' she said with a little hard break in her voice. 'I have heard nothing,' Lucy said impatiently. 'Oh, you poor dear! How can I tell you?' Lucy looked at her startled and amazed, with a sudden terror in her eyes. 'It is about--about----' Her lips grew suddenly white, and refused to pronounce the name of the man who for so short a time had been her lover. 'Yes,' Maria said softly, 'it is about Wyatt Edgell.' 'He--he--oh, don't say he is dead!' Lucy fell on her knees beside the couch and clutched Maria's gown. She was white as a sheet, and her lips were quivering. Maria Stubbs threw her arms around her, she thought she would have fallen, but Lucy pushed her aside. 'Oh, don't tell me he is dead!' she moaned. 'Don't tell me I have killed him!' 'Hush!' Maria said almost fiercely, but her own eyes were full of tears, and her voice faltered as she spoke. 'It isn't your fault that he is dead. He would have died just the same whether you had given him up or not.' She spoke to unheeding ears, for Lucy had fallen with a little cry to the floor. She tried in vain to rouse her. Her face was perfectly colourless, and her lips were white, and she lay like a log where she had fallen. Maria undid her dress and loosened the things about her throat, and threw some water over her face and hands, and then, finding she didn't revive at all, she got frightened and ran to get assistance. Pamela Gwatkin was the only girl who was in her room at that hour, and Maria implored her to come at once. Pamela was sitting with her hands clasped before her and an open letter in her lap. She looked up when Maria came in with a bewildered look in her eyes, which were heavy with weeping. 'You must not ask me,' she said harshly; 'I would not put my hand out to save her. You must ask someone else. I can never, never forgive her!' If Pamela could not find it in her heart to forgive the girl who had ruined Wyatt Edgell's life, it was harder for Lucy to forgive herself. As she lay tossing with fever in her little darkened room for weeks after that miserable day, she reproached herself a thousand times for having murdered her lover. The shock of Wyatt Edgell's death had told on her already overwrought nervous system, and it had given way, and she had been struck down with brain-fever. It was not an unusual thing in a women's college.