y.
Finally Doctor Haley gave his ultimatum. "If she is sent for, I shall
retire from the case."

"Very well," announced Doctor Morton evenly, "then I will take it
myself." He rose and went out into the vestibule where there was a
telephone. Calling for the Beaubien cottage, he gave a peremptory
order that Carmen come at once in the automobile which he was sending
for her.

The Beaubien turned from the telephone to the girl. Her face was
deathly pale.

"What is it, mother dearest?"

"They--they want--you!"

"Why--is it--is he--"

"They say he is--dying," the woman whispered.

Carmen stood for a minute as if stunned. "Why--I--didn't know--that
there was--anything wrong. Mother, you didn't tell me! Why?"

The Beaubien threw her arms around the girl. Father Waite rose from
the table where he had been writing, and came to them.

"Go," he said to Carmen. "The Lord is with thee! Go in this thy
might!"

A few minutes later the great bronze doors of the Ames mansion swung
wide to admit the daughter of the house.

Doctor Morton met the wondering girl, and led her directly into the
sick-room. The other physicians had departed.

"Miss Carmen," he said gravely, "Mr. Ames is past earthly help. He can
not live."

The girl turned upon him like a flash from a clear sky. "You mean, he
_shall_ not live!" she cried. "For you doctors have sentenced him!"

The startled man bowed before the rebuke. Then a sense of her
magnificent environment, of her strange position, and of the vivid
events of the past few hours swept over her, and she became
embarrassed. The nurses and attendants, too, who stood about and
stared so hard at her, added to her confusion.

But the doctor took her hand. "Listen," he said, "I am leaving now,
but you will remain. If I am needed, one of the maids will summon
me."

Carmen stood for a moment without speaking. Then she walked slowly to
the bed and looked down at the man. Doctor Morton motioned to the
attendants to withdraw. Then he himself stepped softly out and closed
the door. When the girl turned around, she was alone--with death.

CHAPTER 19

A curious, gossiping world, dwelling only in the froth of the human
mind, will not comprehend for many a year to come what took place in
that dim, tapestried chamber of the rich man in those next hours. When
twilight began to steal through the marble halls of the great,
shrouded mansion, the nurse in charge, becoming apprehensive, softly
open