With her ladyship standing in the hall watching us we searched high and low. Neither of us felt any curious sensation, and I began to think that the story was merely concocted in order to add mystery to Beryl's unique seizure. Yet, from that woman's face, it was nevertheless evident that she stood there in fear lest any evil should befall us. "Do you experience any queer feeling?" she inquired of us at last. "None whatever," I responded. "It is only on leaving," she replied. "Very well," I answered with a laugh, scouting the idea, and then boldly passing out into the hall. "Good Heavens?" I gasped a few moments later, almost as soon as I had reached her side. "Hoefer! come here quickly. There's something devilish, uncanny in this. I've never felt like this before." The old German dashed out of the room and was in an instant beside me. "How do you feel?" he inquired. I heard his voice, but it sounded like that of some one speaking in the far distance. The shock was just as though an icy hand had struck me as I had emerged from the hall. I was cold from head to foot, shivering violently, while my lower limbs became so benumbed that I could not feel my feet. I must have reeled, for Hoefer in alarm caught me in his arms and steadied me... "Tell me--what are your symptoms?" "I'm cold," I answered, my voice trembling and my teeth chattering violently. He seized my wrist, and his great fingers closed upon it. "Ach!" he cried in genuine alarm, "your pulse is failing. And your eyes!" he added, looking into them. "You are cold--your legs are rigid--you have the same symptoms, exactly the same, as the young lady?" "And you?" I gasped. "Do you feel nothing?" "Nothing yet," he responded--"nothing." "But what is it?" I cried in desperation. "The feeling is truly as though the Angel of Death had passed and struck me down. Cannot you give me something, Hoefer? Give me something--before I lose all consciousness!" The woman near me stood rooted to the spot in absolute terror, while the old German placed me upon an oaken settle in the hall, and ran along to the boudoir, returning with the syringe filled with the same injection which he had administered to my love. This he gave me in the arm, then stood by breathlessly anxious as to the result. The feelings I experienced during the ten minutes that followed are indescribable. I can only compare them to the excruciating agony of being slowly frozen to death. Through it all I saw Hoefer's great fleshy face with the big spectacles peering into mine. I tried to speak, but could not. I tried to raise my hand to make signs, but my muscles had suddenly become paralysed. Truly the mystery of that room was an uncanny one.