“There he is—­I knew it!” cried Queenie from the room at the rear.  It was a cry that smote Van like a stab.

Then he came to the room where she was lying.

“I knew you’d come—­I knew it, Van!” said the girl in a sudden outburst of sobbing, and she tried to rise upon her pillow.  Agony, which she had fought down wildly, seized her in a spasm.  She doubled on the bed.

Van glanced about quickly.  The doctor—­a young, inexperienced man—­was there, sweating, a look of abject helplessness upon his face.  The room was a poor tawdry place, with gaudy decorations and a litter of Queenie’s finery.  In her effort to conquer the pains that possessed her body, the girl had distorted her face almost past recognition.

Van came to the bedside directly, placed his hand on her shoulder, and gave her one of his characteristic little shakings.

“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?”

The look on her face was peculiarly childish, as she drove out the lines of anguish in a superhuman effort made for him.  And the yearning there brought back again that thought he had voiced before, that night—­why couldn’t the child have had a chance?

The doctor was feverishly mixing another potent drink.

Van bent down and kissed her, indulgently.

“Force her to take it!” cried the doctor desperately.  “Force her to take it!”

“Queenie,” Van said, “you’ve got to take this stuff.”

Her hand had found his and clutched it with galvanic strength.

“Don’t—­make me,” she begged, closing her eyes in a species of ecstacy that no man may understand.  “I’d rather—­not—­Van—­please.  Only about a minute now.  Ain’t it funny—­that love—­can burn you—­up?” Her grip had tightened on his hand.