Yes--this indeed was perfect repose; but it was the repose of death.
The bottle from which Paulina had habitually taken a daily modicum of
opium, lay on the ground by the bedside, empty.
Whether the luckless, hopeless, heart-broken woman, overwhelmed by the
sense of an inscrutable Fate that forbade her every chance of peace or
happiness, had, in her supreme despair, committed the sin of the
suicide, who shall say? It is possible that she had only taken an over-
dose of the perilous compound unconsciously, in the dull apathy of her
despair.
She was dead. Life for her had been one long humiliation, one long
struggle. And at last, when the cup of happiness had been offered to
her lips, a cruel hand had snatched it away from her.
* * * * *
When Miss Brewer recovered her senses and her power of action, she sent
for Douglas Dale. News of the awful event had got abroad by that time,
through the terrified servants; and two doctors and a policeman were on
the premises. A messenger was easily procured, who tore off in a hansom
to the Temple. As the man ran up the steps leading to Dr. Johnson's
Buildings, where Dale's new chambers were situated, he encountered two
ladies on the first landing.
"I beg your pardon," he said, pushing them, however, very decidedly
aside as he spoke, "I must see Mr.
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