“Dr. Marsh says the heart action is very weak and slow.”
“Respiration?” And Filhiol peered over his glasses at her as he sat there before his washstand, on which he had spread a newspaper, now covered with various little piles of powder.
“Hardly ten to the minute. For God’s sake, doctor, do something! Haven’t you got the formula yet?”
“Not yet, Laura. It’s a very delicate compound, and I have no means here for making proper analyses, or even for weighing out minute quantities. I don’t suppose a man ever tried to work under such fearful handicaps.”
“I know,” she answered. “But—oh, there must be _some_ way you can get it!”
Their eyes met and silence came. On the porch roof, below the doctor’s window, the rain was ruffling all its drums. The window, rattled in its sash, seemed in the grip of some jinnee that sought to force entrance. Filhiol glanced down at his little powders and said:
“Here’s what I’m up against, Laura. I’m positively sure one of these two nearest me is correct. But I can’t tell which.”
“One or the other is fearfully poisonous. My old brain doesn’t work as well as it used to, and after fifty years—But, yes, one of these two here,” and he pointed at the little conical heaps nearest him with the point of the knife wherewith he had been mixing them, “one of these two must be the correct formula. The other—well, it’s deadly. I don’t know which is which.”
“If you knew definitely which one was poisonous,” asked she, “would that make you certain of the other?”
“Yes,” he answered, not at all understanding. “But without the means of making qualitative analyses, or the time for them, how can I find out?”
She had come close, and now stood at his left side. Before he could advance a hand to stop her, she had caught up, between thumb and finger, a little of the powder nearest her and had put it into her mouth.
“Holy Lord, girl!” shouted the old man, springing up. His chair clashed to the floor. “How do you know which—”
“I’ll know in a few moments, won’t I?” she asked. “And then you’ll be able to give the right one to Hal?”
The old doctor could only stare at her. Then he groaned, and began to cry. The tears that had not flowed in years were flowing now. For the first time in all that long and lonesome life, without the love of woman to soften it, he had realized what manner of thing a woman’s love can be.