"'No; but he looks dreadfully. Ever since we got him on the lounge--he would not leave the laboratory--he has lain in one position, his eye upon those broken pieces of glass. He would not even let me wipe up the red liquid that was in them, and it drips from table to floor in a way to make your blood run cold.' "'Can I see him,' I asked, 'without his seeing me?' "'Yes,' said she, 'if you come very carefully; his head is towards the door.' "I did as she bade, and crept towards the open door. As I reached it he was speaking low to himself. "'Drop by drop,' he was saying, 'just as if it were my life-blood that was dripping from the table to the floor.' "It was a terrible thing to hear, for _me_ to hear, and I shrank back. But soon a certain sense of duty drove me forward again, and I leaned across the threshold, peering at his rigid and attenuated figure lying just where he could watch the destruction of all his hopes. I could not see his face, but his attitude was eloquent, and I felt a pang strike through all my horror at the sight of a grief the death of both his children could not have occasioned him. "Suddenly he bounded up. "'Curse her!' he began, in a frenzy; but instantly seemed to bethink himself, for he sank back very meekly as Emma stooped over him and Doris rushed to his side. 'Excuse me,' said he; 'I fear I am not just in my right mind.' "They thought so too, and in a few minutes Doris stole out after the doctor, but I knew whatever delirium he had sprang from his hate of me, and was awed into a shrinking inactivity which Emma excused while only partially understanding. "The doctor came and this time I stood watching. My father, who had not expected this interference, showed anger at first, but soon settled back into a half-jocular, half-indifferent endurance of the interloper, which tended to impress the latter, and did succeed in doing so, with the folly of those who thought he was sick enough to rouse a doctor up at midnight. Few questions brought few replies, and the irritated physician left us with something like a rebuke. He however said he would come again in the morning, as there was a fitfulness in my father's pulse which he did not like. "But before the doctor appeared that morning father had called me for the third and last time to his side. "'I wish to see my eldest daughter alone,' he declared, as Emma lingered and Doris hovered about the open door. They at once went out. 'Now shut the door,' said he, as their footsteps were heard descending the stairs. "I did as I was bid, though I felt as if I were shutting myself in with some horrid doom. "'Now come in front of me,' he commanded, 'I want to look at you. I have just five minutes left in which to do it.' "'Five minutes!' I repeated hoarsely, creeping round with tottering and yet more tottering steps to where he pointed. "'Yes; the poison has done its work at last. At eight o'clock I shall be dead.'