~4~
Exultant and happy I left the laboratory. I had not slept for forty hours and scarcely half my regular allotment for many weeks. And yet I was not sleepy now but awake and excited. I had won a great victory, and I wanted to rejoice and share my conquest with sympathetic ears. I could go to Zimmern, but instead I turned my steps toward the elevator and, alighting on the Level of the Free Women, I went straightway to Marguerite's apartment.
Despite my feeling of exhilaration, my face must have revealed something of my real state of exhaustion, for Marguerite cried in alarm at the sight of me.
"A little tired," I replied, in answer to her solicitous questions; "I have just finished my demonstration before the Chemical Staff."
"And you won?" cried Marguerite in a burst of joy. "You deceived them just as the doctor said you would. And they know you have solved the protium problem and they do not know how you did it?"
"That is correct," I said, sinking back into the cushions of the divan. "I have done all that. I came here first to tell you. You see I could not come before, all these weeks, I have had no time for sleep or anything. I would have telephoned or written but I feared it would not be safe. Did you think I was not coming again?"
"I missed you at first,--I mean at first I thought you were staying away because you did not want to see me, and then Dr. Zimmern told me what you were doing, and I understood--and waited, for I somehow knew you would come as soon as you could."
"Yes, of course you knew. Of course, I had to come--Marguerite--" But Marguerite faded before my vision. I reached out my hand for her--and it seemed to wave in empty space....