Then she set her lips hard and took a deep breath. She must not faint, if this was fainting. She had never fainted in her life.

“Oh,” moaned one of the girls, “I told you he had been drinking. We saw him on his way down for his car, and he stopped and kidded with us. I thought then he wasn’t quite himself and his breath was strong of liquor.”

But the freshman had got her breath again and, seizing hold of Constance, drew her along.

“Come quick!” she said. “They told me to tell you to hurry. She might not live but a few minutes. No, not to the dormitory. They have taken her to the hospital!”

Constance’s brain began to function at last and her heavy feet to move. She was anguished with the need for haste. She tried to run and seemed to be creeping.

The freshman, Nan Smythe, kept easy pace with her and talked breathlessly every step of the way.

“They went over the cliff on the river drive! The car is a wreck in the valley! Casper Coulter was dead when they picked him up! Doris was under the car! But she was conscious. They say—”

“Don’t!” said Constance. “Oh, don’t tell me anything more or I can’t get there!” The freshman looked at her speculatively. She was easing her own soul’s excitement by telling the tale.

Constance fled along trying to keep pace with her thoughts. Down there was the drive where they sped away into the sunlight just a little over an hour ago. She could see again the flashing of Doris’s white hand in farewell. The glint of the red hat in the sun. She caught her breath in a deep quick sob and, putting her head down, ran toward the hospital entrance, outdistancing the freshman.

Breathlessly she followed a white-garbed nurse through those white halls that had never meant anything to her before but a haven for a few days’ rest, a case of mumps or measles out of due time, a twisted ankle with plenty of good company and flowers and candy. Now the echo in the marble halls filled her with awe. Death was here somewhere! Death waited to take Doris, her Doris, away forever!

Pale with horror, she arrived at the room where they had laid the poor broken body and approached the bed. And Doris, blithe Doris, cried out in fright and suffering. Constance scarcely recognized her agonized voice. Doris, who had no friends or relatives nearer than California and who turned to her in her calamity!

“Oh, Connie,” she cried out, “they say I’m going to die! They say I’ve only a few hours at most, it may be only a few minutes. Connie, you’ve got to tell me how to die! You joined the church. You ought to know what to do. Tell me quick! For the love of mercy, help me quick!”

Chapter 8

Constance, with ghastly white face and knees trembling so that she could not stand, dropped down beside the hospital bed and struggled for her usual self-control. She had always prided herself on being able to adapt herself to any circumstance, had always thought she could rise to any crisis. But here was one she could not meet.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do to keep this comrade alive longer. She was up against it. Doris had to leave this earth in a few short hours! How terrible!

It had never occurred to Constance that any such horrible situation could ever face anyone whom she knew, and her poise was absolutely shaken, her mind became a blank.

“Try to quiet her,” whispered the nurse.