‘I don’t think I have deserved that,’ said the other proudly, and all at once in this queer hour both men felt that the tie that had bound them for years was stronger than they knew. ‘Stay, then,’ said the Professor. He went into an inner room and returned with a phial and glass, and advanced towards the girl with an almost buoyant step. There was, indeed, an exhilaration in his whole air, that amounted almost to madness. He looked wild—spectral, indeed—in the dim light of the solitary lamp, with his white hair thrown back and his eyes shining fiercely beneath the rugged brows. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. She made a slight gesture of assent, and went a step or two to meet him. She was deadly pale, but she stood without support of any kind. The Professor poured some of the pale fluid from the phial into the glass with a hand that never faltered, and the girl took it with a hand that faltered quite as little; but before she could raise it to her lips, Wyndham caught her arm. ‘Stop!’ cried he, as if choking. ‘Have you thought—have you considered that there is no certainty in this drug?’ Her eyes rested for a moment on his. ‘I thought there was a certainty,’ she said slowly. ‘A certainty of death, perhaps,’ said he, poignant fear in his tone. ‘At this last moment I appeal to you, for your own sake. Don’t take it. If you do, it is doubtful whether you will ever come back to life again.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘I hope there is no doubt,’ she said. She raised the glass and drank its contents to the dregs. As she did so, some clock in the silent city outside struck the midnight hour. CHAPTER III. ‘A land of darkness, as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death; without any order, and where the light is as darkness.’ Morning had broken through the sullen gloom of night, and still the two men watched beside the couch on which the girl lay, seemingly, in all the tranquillity of death. The Professor’s drug had been calculated to keep her asleep for exactly six hours. So long a time would be a test. If she lived, and woke at the right time, then he would try again. He would make it worth her while. For the younger man, during this anxious vigil, there had been passing lapses of memory, that he, however, would have disdained to acknowledge as sleep; but with the old man there had been no question of oblivion, and now, as the vital moment drew near that should test the truth of the great discovery, even Wyndham grew abnormally wide-awake, and with nervous heart-sinkings watched the pale, death-like face of the girl. Could it be unreal? Wyndham rose once and bent over her. No faintest breath came from her lips or nostrils; the whole face had taken the pinched, ashen appearance of one who had lain for a full day dead. The hands were waxen, and the forehead too. He shuddered and drew back. At that moment he told himself that she was dead, and that he had undoubtedly assisted at a form of murder.