she lifted up the averted head, and on the white throat saw a little
wound, from which the blood still flowed. Then, like a flash of
light, the meaning of the sudden change which came over her grew
clear,--her brave efforts to make the last day happy, her tender
good-night partings, her wish to be at peace with every one, the
tragic death she had chosen rather than live out the tragic life
that lay before her.

Christie's nerves had been tried to the uttermost; the shock of this
discovery was too much for her, and, in the act of calling for help,
she fainted, for the first time in her life.

When she was herself again, the room was full of people;
terror-stricken faces passed before her; broken voices whispered,
"It is too late," and, as she saw the group about the bed, she
wished for unconsciousness again.

Helen lay in her mother's arms at last, quietly breathing her life
away, for though every thing that love and skill could devise had
been tried to save her, the little knife in that desperate hand had
done its work, and this world held no more suffering for her. Harry
was down upon his knees beside her, trying to stifle his passionate
grief. Augustine prayed audibly above her, and the fervor of his
broken words comforted all hearts but one. Bella was clinging,
panic-stricken, to the kind old doctor, who was sobbing like a boy,
for he had loved and served poor Helen as faithfully as if she had
been his own.

"Can nothing save her?" Christie whispered, as the prayer ended, and
a sound of bitter weeping filled the room.