Cynthia Wakeham's Money Part 40

"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 G.o.d!" 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, rea.s.suring 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.

XXIX.

IN THE POPLAR WALK.

Two days had pa.s.sed. Hermione was sitting in the cheerful sitting-room with the choicest of flowers about her and the breeze from the open window fluttering gayly in her locks. She was weak yet, but there was promise of life in her slowly brightening eye, and from the language of the smile which now and then disturbed the lines of her proud lips, there was hope of happiness in the heart which but two short days before had turned from life in despair.

Yet it was not a perfect hope, or the smiles would have been deeper and more frequent. She had held a long talk with Frank, but he had not touched upon a certain vital question, perhaps because he felt she had not yet the strength to argue it. He was her lover and antic.i.p.ated marrying her, but he had not said whether he expected her to disobey her father and leave her home. She felt that he must expect this; she also felt that he had the right to do so; but when she thought of yielding to his wishes, the old horror returned to her, and a suffocating feeling of fear, as if it would never be allowed. The dead have such a hold upon us. As the pleasure of living and the ecstasy of love began to make themselves felt again in her weakened frame, she could not refrain from asking herself by what right she contemplated taking up the joys of life, who had not only forfeited them by her attempt at suicide, but who had been cursed by a father and doomed by his will to perpetual imprisonment. Had he not said, "Let not hatred, let not _love_, lead you to leave these doors"? How then presume to think of it or dream that she could be happy with such remembrances as hers ever springing up to blight her life? She wished, oh! how she wished, that Frank would not ask her to leave her home. Yet she knew this was weakness, and that soon, at the next interview, perhaps, she would have to dash his hopes by speaking of her fears. And so Hermione was not perfectly happy.