The doctor himself, eagerly bending over the bed, watched Irene's face with anxious eyes. Soon the potion began to work. By degrees, Irene began moving her arms and hands, and her cheeks assumed a faint tinge of colour. Several times she quickly turned her head on her pillow, moaned piteously, closed her eyes, and then opened them. The lamp was in front of her, and the bright light seemed painful, for she covered her eyes with her hands. "She sees! she sees!" cried the doctor, with an alacrity that seemed to us of good omen. "She is saved!" exclaimed Catherine, clasping her hands, as if in thanks to Heaven. "No rash expectation, madame!" said Doctor Ralph, austerely and almost harshly. "I have already told you this semblance of life is deceptive. It is like galvanism which gives motion to a dead body, and a breath may snap the invisible cord which binds this child to life." Then, turning to me, he added: "It will be your turn, monsieur, presently to endeavour to strengthen that feeble thread. I solemnly declare, if that child lives, which, alas! I scarcely dare to hope, it is to you she will owe it, for known science does not work such miracles." "God alone can work them," said Frank, in a solemn voice. "Or certain mysterious and magnetic influences which one must concede without understanding them," added the doctor. The stimulus of the potion upon Irene became more and more apparent. Two or three times she sighed deeply, held forth her arms, and then murmured, in a feeble voice: "Mother! Arthur!" "Now," said the doctor, "take one of the child's hands in yours, monsieur, and let the other be in her mother's; come as close to her as possible, and call her, softly, slowly, so that the sound may have time to reach her feeble hearing." I took hold of one of Irene's hands, her mother held the other. Her hand was cold and moist. I leaned over Irene. Her big eyes, looking still larger since her illness, wandered around as if in search of some one. "Irene--Irene--I am here," I said, in a low voice. "Irene--my child--your mother is here also," said Catherine, with an accent of passionate and fearful anxiety impossible to describe. At first the child did not seem to hear us. "Irene--it is your friend--it is Arthur and your mother. Do you not hear her?" "Your mother--_mon Dieu!_ your mother is near you!" repeated Catherine. This time the child's look no longer wandered. She moved her head suddenly, as if a sound from afar had reached her. "How is her hand?" inquired the doctor, in a whisper. "Still cold," I answered. "Still cold," rejoined the mother. "That is bad, you are not yet _en rapport_,--continue." "Irene--dear child--angel--do you hear me? It is I--Arthur," I whispered. Irene raised her eyes, and met mine fastened on her. I had often heard magnetic attraction spoken of, and this time I experienced its action and reaction.