John, take the secret. Keep my word for me. If you doubt the discovery, try it on an enemy. If you think my sorrow could have been avoided, offer the Bacillus as a wedding gift to—.
Give Milly, who has Ned's love, my beauty? Would it turn him from her? If I thought it—But even for that, there shall be no other! It shall go first. Forever and forever my name, my face,—
"Delilah!" It grins, it gibbers. Wait for no tests. Print quick! To-morrow, to-day—it's almost day. Give him what he wants, John—"Delilah!"
Why do you come back, dead face, dead eyes? Haven't I promised? You shall have print, type, a million circulation! Go away, you're dead! What's fame to youth, health, life? It's you who rob and kill. I won't look—I won't! If I wake Kitty, could she help? I won't look, I'm going mad!
Gone! I must hurry. He might come back. Shall I leave the secret? It's life for life, we're even. If beauty were cheap, who'd care for it? It's death to be first, but afterwards—nothing! If I burned it—but no—I promised—.
Why not?
"Delilah!" Your health, dead eyes! I haf put t'e bacillus of perfect vine into t'e new grape juice, and I svear it's—Prosit, dead eyes!—here's a P.P.C.; quickest goodby—Poor Kitty! You'll be sorry for the most beautiful woman in the—
The Bacillus of Beauty has had its victim.
Why do I keep the wine-splashed, rose-breathing letter? Why read over and over the fragments of Helen's journal? Better remember my little school-mate as she was before the poison stung her. Might she, with time and contact with life, have reacted against the virus, or must such loveliness be fatal to what is best in woman? Who can answer? Helen is dead, Darmstetter is dead, and the Bacillus—
The Bacillus shall have no other victim.