"Queenie, what have you done?" he said. "What's going on?"
She tried to smile. It was a terrible effort.
"It's nobody's fault—but what was the use, Van?—what was there in it for me?"
"She won't take anything—the antidote—anything! There isn't a stomach pump in town!" the doctor broke in desperately. "She's got to! It's getting too late! We'll have to force it down! Maybe she'd take it for you." He thrust a goblet into Van's nervous hand. It contained a misty drink.
"For God's sake take this, Queenie," Van implored. "Take it quick!"
She shrank away, attempting with amazing force of will to mask her pain.
"I'd take the stuff—for your sake—when I—wouldn't for God," she faltered, sitting up, despite her bodily anguish. "You don't ask me to—do it for you."
"I do, Queenie—take it for me!" he answered, wrung again as he had been at her smiles, an hour before, but now with heart-piercing poignancy. "Take it for me, if you won't for anyone else."
She received the glass—and deliberately threw it on the floor. The doctor cried out sharply. Queenie shook her head, all the time fighting down her agony, which was fast making inroads to her life. She fell back on her pillow.
"You didn't—ask me—Van 'cause you love me. Nobody—wants me to live. That's all right. Do you s'pose you could kiss me good-by?"