Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/284

274 suspicion. Slipping down in front of an automobile, making a mistake about sleeping-powders. It might be done. But, oh, she didn't want to die that way. Not that she was much on religion, but she didn't want to take any such chances with immortality. There must be some other way.

It was sometime during the course of the second night, when she was wearied and exhausted almost to the breaking point, that the "some other way" flashed across Stella's mental field of vision. The first consciousness of it made her feel queer and hollow inside for a moment. It was like having a messenger suddenly run onto the scene with your pardon, just when you were settling yourself in the electric chair.

Tremblingly, anxiously, she groped her way across the hall to her desk in the front room. If only she could find the address. It was on a card. She had never thrown the card away. It must be somewhere. Oh, what if Laurel in one of her raids upon the cluttered desk had torn it up, tossed it aside? What if it was ashes now? She had no other clue. If the card was lost, she was lost. "Help me find it. Help me find it." It was about the size of a calling-card, a little larger, very grimy, because she had carried it about in her shopping-bag for a long while. Here! This looked like it! Yes, this was it! No, it wasn't! Yes, it was. Yes! Yes! She had found it. She held it up close to the electric light.

172 North Blank Street,

Boston, Mass.