He dispatched the servants madly--one to the telephone, one for stimulants; while he rubbed his wife's hands and feet, and tried to get brandy between her lips in the futile fashion of the inexperienced. He could not stimulate any signs of life, and he dared not leave her. Molly reported, sobbing, that Dr. Thorne was not at home, but that Mrs. Thorne had bade her call the nearest doctor; she had rung up the one at the corner, and he was coming. The nearest doctor came, and he lost no time about it. He was a stranger, and young. Avery looked stupidly at his inexperienced face. The physician stooped and put his ear to Jean's heart. He went through the form of feeling the pulse, and busied himself in various uncertain ways about her. In a short time he rose, and stood looking at the carpet. He did not meet the husband's eye. "You can keep on stimulating if you like," he said. "Perhaps you would feel better. But in my opinion it is of no use." "For God's sake, man, are n't you going to _do_ something?" demanded the husband in a voice which the nearest doctor had occasion to remember. "In my opinion the patient is dead," persisted the stranger. He turned and took up his hat. "I will do anything you like, of course, sir," he added politely. "But life is extinct." Avery made no reply, and the strange physician went uncomfortably away. Avery stared after him with bloodshot eyes. He now held his wife, half sitting, against his own warm body; he had a confused idea that he could will her alive, or love her alive; that if he could make her understand how it all was, she _could_ not die. She loved him too much. But Jean's gray face fell upon his breast like stiffening clay. Her pulse was imperceptible. He turned piteously to the Irish girl. "Molly! Can't _you_ think of anything more we can do for her?" At this moment a carriage dashed to the door, and came to a violent stop. "Mother of God!" cried Molly. "Here is Dr. Thorne!" With a resounding noise Esmerald Thorne flung back the opening front door. With his hat on his head he cleared the stairs. Molly stood wringing her hands on the threshold of Mrs. Avery's room. He hurled the girl away as if she had been a wrong prescription left by a blundering rival. His blazing eye concentrated itself on the patient like a burning-glass. That which had been Jean Avery, half reclining, held against her husband's heart, lay unresponsive. One arm with its slender hand hung over the edge of the bed, straight down. "Change the position!" cried Dr. Thorne loudly. "Put her head down--so--flat--perfectly horizontal. Now get out of my way--the whole of you." He knelt beside the bed, and with great gentleness, curiously at contrast with his imperious and one might have called it angry manner, put his ear to Jean's heart.