Alas! they might as well have sought to arouse a stone statue. Never more would there be any arousing for poor Lady Oswald in this world. Death was claiming her: uncompromising, not-to-be-denied death! Parkins, considerably recovered from her own attack, but in a shaky and tearful state, had come into the room with the rest. Parkins seemed inclined to rebel at the state of things; to question everybody, to cast blame somewhere. "Why should chloroform have been given to her!" she asked of Mr. Cray. "It was given with a view to deaden the pain," was Mark's short answer. "But, sir, the operation was all but begun, if not begun, when I--when I---fainted: and there had been no question then of giving her chloroform." "No, and it was your fainting that did three parts of the mischief," savagely returned Mr. Cray, who felt it the greatest relief to be able to lay the blame upon somebody. "It put her into a most undesirable state of agitation. I should think you must have heard her shriek, in spite of your fainting-fit." The words, the angry tone, completely did for Parkins, and she subsided into tears again. A few minutes, and Dr. Davenal turned from the ill-fated lady to her servants standing there. "It is all over. She is gone." And the doctor looked at his watch, and found that only one poor hour had elapsed since he had entered the house to perform that operation which had altogether terminated so fatally. CHAPTER XVI. NEAL'S DISMAY. Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray went forth together. Outside the hall-door stood Julius Wild. It now wanted twenty minutes to seven. The Infirmary pupil had arrived a quarter of an hour before, and had waited patiently ever since to be let in. He had rung the bell in vain. In the confusion and distress of the house, it had, perhaps, not been heard, certainly had not been attended to. His rings had been but gentle ones: Julius Wild knew better than to make a noise at a house when illness was inside it: and he waited patiently enough, wondering whether the servants were asleep, whether Lady Oswald was worse, and believing the doctors had not yet come. When they came forth, he was excessively surprised, marvelling greatly at his non-admittance. "I have been ringing this quarter of an hour," he said, by way of explanation and apology. "I can't think what the servants can have been about." "What have _you_ been about?" thundered Mark Cray, giving way to anger, although he had come straight from the presence of the dead. Mr. Wild was astonished. "I say, sir, I have been waiting here. I have been here this quarter of an hour, and could not get let in." "And, pray, what kept you? Why were you not here to time?" "I was here to time, sir," was the deprecating answer; and the young man marvelled much what had so put out his good-tempered medical master. "You told me to be here a little before half-past six, sir, and I got here five minutes before it."