"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 life. It was this afternoon. A telegram came--from some friend of his...." All further words, if more there were, bounded off from the sudden iron stillness within her. Mechanically she raised the receiver to the hook, for was not her talk with Meeghan's quite finished? Jack Dalhousie had killed himself. Sackcloth and ashes would not get a telegram to him now.... And then, some flying remembrance of the bearer of the tidings struck through her numbness, and she caught down the receiver again and said indistinctly: "I can't talk any more now.... I'll be all right...." Then all thought stopped, and her head went forward upon her hands. The yellow plume nodded bravely.... Outside the door of the booth was the brilliant corridor, and beyond a glimpse of the dining-room, pretty with shaded lights, gay with music and talk, and eyes that stared unabashed. Somewhere in there were Mrs. Heth and Canning, dining well. The page stood near, the call-slip offered upon his tray. He, who admired her, was aware of a subtle distortion in this lady's winning loveliness.