"Lay Mr. Bruce flat on his back," she called out, as she darted upstairs for her room, and returned with smelling salts, ammonia and such things. Tracy, also capable and self-possessed, took a vial from her and held it before the face of the stricken child, while others strove to bring back to consciousness the motionless figure of Gifford Bruce, now stretched on the floor. "It's no use," declared Landon, flinging the beads of sweat from his forehead, "they are dead,--both of them. Oh, what _does_ it mean?" Norma sat in a big chair, her hands clutching its carved arms, and her face stony white. She was using all her will power to keep from utter collapse, and she couldn't understand how Eve could be so natural and self-possessed. "Brace up, Norma," Eve admonished her; "here, take this salts-bottle. Now is no time to make more trouble!" The brusque words had the effect of rousing Norma, and she forced herself to rise. "What can I do?" she whispered. "Do!" cried Eve, "there's everything to do! Some one telephone for a doctor!" "I--can't," Norma moaned. "You do that, Professor,--won't you?" "Oh, I can't!" and Hardwick fell limply into a chair. "I--I'm all upset----" "Of course you are, Professor," said Tracy, kindly. "I'll telephone, Miss Carnforth. Do you know the village doctor's name? Of course,--it's too late----" he glanced at the two still forms, "but a physician must be summoned." "No, I don't know any name,--call Thorpe, or Hester." Tracy rang a bell and Thorpe came shuffling in. At sight of the tragedy, he turned and ran, screaming. Hester came, and proved the more useful of the two. Her stolidity was helpful, and she told the doctor's name and number. "Dead, ain't they?" she said, with a grieved intonation that robbed her words of curtness. "What happened to 'em?" The simple question roused them all. What had happened? What had killed two strong, well, able-bodied people at the same moment, and that the very moment said to be fatal in that dread house? "I believe," said the Professor, dropping his face in his hands, "I believe now in the supernatural. Nothing else can explain this thing." "Of course not," and Eve solemnly acquiesced. "There is no possibility of anything else. What could kill them, like this, at once, and at four o'clock exactly, except a supernormal agent?" "But that seems so impossible!" and Tracy's practical, matter-of-fact voice did indeed make it seem so. "What else _is_ possible?" broke in Landon. "It isn't suicide, it isn't murder. It isn't death from natural causes,--at least, it can't be in Vernie's case,--I suppose Mr. Bruce might have died from heart disease." "That's why we want a doctor," said Eve. "We can judge nothing until we know the immediate cause of death." "I wish we were in the city," Tracy said; "the doctor will be nearly an hour getting here, I suppose." "Did you tell him all?" asked Eve.