"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?"