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.