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Frank and Edgar were equally pale as they reached the Cavanagh house. No time had been lost on the way, and yet the moments had been long enough for them both to be the prey of the wildest conjectures. The messenger who had brought the startling news of Hermione's illness knew nothing concerning the matter beyond the fact that Doris, their servant, had called to him, as he was passing their house, to run for Dr. Sellick, as Miss Hermione was dying. They were therefore entirely in the dark as to what had happened, and entered the house, upon their arrival, like men for whom some terrible doom might be preparing.
The first person they encountered was Huckins. He was standing in the parlor window, rubbing his hands slowly together and smiling very softly to himself. But when he saw the two young men, he came forward with a cringing bow and an expression of hypocritical grief, which revived all Frank's distrust and antipathy.
"Oh, sir," he exclaimed to Frank, "you here? You should not have come; indeed you should not. Sad case," he added, turning to the Doctor; "very sad case, this which we have upstairs. I fear we are going to lose the dear young lady." And he wiped his half-shut eyes with his fine white handkerchief.
"Let me see her; where is she?" cried the Doctor, not stopping to look around him, though the place must have been full of the most suggestive associations.
"Doris will show you. She was in the laboratory when I saw her last. A dangerous place for a young lady who has been jilted by her lover!" And he turned a very twinkling eye on Frank.
"What do you mean?" cried Frank. "The laboratory! The place where—— O Edgar, go to her, go at once."
But Edgar was already half-way upstairs, at the top of which he was met by Doris.
"What is this?" he cried. "What has happened to Miss Cavanagh?"
"Come and see," she said. "O that she should go out of the house first in this way!"
Alarmed more by the woman's manner than her words, Dr. Sellick hurried forward and entered the open laboratory door almost without realizing that in another instant he would be in the presence of Emma. And when he did see her, and met the eyes he had not looked into since that night a year before when she listened to his vows with such a sweet and bashful timidity, he hardly felt the shock of the change observable in her, for the greater shock her sister's appearance inspired. For Hermione lay on that same old couch which had once held her father, ill to speechlessness, and though the Doctor did not know what had brought her to this condition, he began to suspect and doubt if he were in time to revive her.
"What has she taken?" he demanded. "Something, or she would not be as low as this without more warning."
Emma, quaking, put a little piece of paper in his hand.
"I found this in her pocket," she whispered. "It was only a little while ago. It is quite empty," said she, "or you would have had two patients."
He stared at her, hardly taking in her words. Then he leaped to the door.
"Frank," he cried, tossing down a slip of paper on which he had hastily written a word, "go with this to the druggist at once! Run, for moments are precious!"
They heard a shout in answer; then the noise of the front door opening and shutting, and the sound of rapidly departing steps.
"Thank God!" the young physician murmured, as he came back into the laboratory, "that I studied chemistry with Mr. Cavanagh, or I might not know just what antidote was required here."
"Look!" Emma whispered; "she moved, when you said the word Frank ."
The Doctor leaned forward and took Emma's hand.
"If we can rouse her enough to make her speak, she will be saved. When did she take that powder?"
"I fear she took it this morning, shortly after—after nine o'clock; but she did not begin to grow seriously ill till an hour ago, when she suddenly threw up her arms and shrieked."
"And didn't you know; didn't you suspect——"
"No, for she said nothing. She only looked haggard and clung to me; clung as if she could not bear to have me move an inch away from her side."
"And how long has she been unconscious and in that clammy, cold sweat?"
"A little while; just before we sent for you. I—I hated to disturb you at first, but life is everything, and——"
He gave her one deep, reassuring look.
"Emma," he softly murmured, "if we save your sister, four hearts shall be happy. See if you can make her stir. Tell her that Frank is here, and wants to see her."
Emma, with a brightening countenance, leaned over and kissed Hermione's marble-like brow.
"Hermione," she cried, "Hermione! Frank wants you; he is tired of waiting. Come, dear; shall I not tell him you will come?"
A quiver at the word Frank , but that was all.
"It is Frank, dear; Frank!" Emma persisted. "Rouse up long enough just to see him. He loves you, Hermione."
Not even a quiver now. Dr. Sellick began to turn pale.
"Hermione, will you leave us now, just as you are going to be happy? Listen, listen to Emma. You know I have always told you the truth. Frank is here, ready to love you. Wake, darling; wake, dearest——"
There was no use. No marble could be more unresponsive. Dr. Sellick rushed in anguish to the door. But the step he heard there was that of Huckins, and it was Huckins' face he encountered at the head of the stairs.
"Is she dead?" cried that worthy, bending forward to look into the room. "I was afraid, very much afraid, you could not do any good, when I saw how cold she was, poor dear."
The Doctor, not hearing him, shouted out: "The antidote! the antidote! Why does not Frank come!"
At that instant Frank was heard below: "Am I in time?" he gasped. "Here it is; I ran all the way"; and he came rushing up the stairs just as Huckins slipped from the step where he was and fell against him.
"Oh," whimpered that old hypocrite, "I beg your pardon; I am so agitated!" But his agitation seemed to spring mainly from the fact that the antidote Frank brought was in powder and not in a bottle, which might have been broken in their encounter.
Dr. Sellick, who saw nothing but the packet Frank held, grasped the remedy and dashed back into the room. Frank followed and stood in anguished suspense within the open doorway. Huckins crouched and murmured to himself on the stair.
"Can we get her to take it? Is there hope?" murmured Emma.
No word came in reply; the Doctor was looking fixedly at his patient.
"Frank," he said solemnly, "come and take her hand in yours. Nothing else will ever make her unlock her lips."
Frank, reeling in his misery, entered and fell at her feet.
"Hermione," he endeavored to say, but the word would not come. Breaking into sobs he took her hand and laid his forehead upon it. Would that anguish of the beloved one arouse her? Dr. Sellick and Emma drew near together in their anxiety and watched. Suddenly a murmur escaped from the former, and he bent rapidly forward. The close-locked lips were parting, parting so slowly, so imperceptibly, that only a physician's eye could see it. Waiting till they were opened enough to show the pearly teeth, he stooped and whispered in Frank's ear. Instantly the almost overwhelmed lover, roused, saw this evidence of existing life, and in his frenzied relief imprinted one wild kiss upon the hand he held. It seemed to move her, to reach her heart, to stay the soul just hovering on the confines of life, for the lips parted further, the lids of the eyes trembled, and before the reaction came, Dr. Sellick had succeeded in giving her a few grains of the impalpable powder he was holding.
"It will either kill or restore her," said he. "In five minutes we shall know the result."
And when at the end of those five minutes they heard a soft sigh, they never thought, in their sudden joy and relief, to look for the sneaking figure trembling on the staircase, who, at this first sign of reviving life in one he thought dead, slid from his station and went creeping down the stairs, with baffled looks that would have frightened even Doris had she seen them.