"What is this?" he cried. "What has happened to Miss Cavanagh?"
"Come and see," she said. "O that she should go out of the house first in this way!"
Alarmed more by the woman's manner than her words, Dr. Sellick hurried forward and entered the open laboratory door almost without realizing that in another instant he would be in the presence of Emma. And when he did see her, and met the eyes he had not looked into since that night a year before when she listened to his vows with such a sweet and bashful timidity, he hardly felt the shock of the change observable in her, for the greater shock her sister's appearance inspired. For Hermione lay on that same old couch which had once held her father, ill to speechlessness, and though the Doctor did not know what had brought her to this condition, he began to suspect and doubt if he were in time to revive her.
"What has she taken?" he demanded. "Something, or she would not be as low as this without more warning."
Emma, quaking, put a little piece of paper in his hand.
"I found this in her pocket," she whispered. "It was only a little while ago. It is quite empty," said she, "or you would have had two patients."
He stared at her, hardly taking in her words. Then he leaped to the door.
"Frank," he cried, tossing down a slip of paper on which he had hastily written a word, "go with this to the druggist at once! Run, for moments are precious!"
They heard a shout in answer; then the noise of the front door opening and shutting, and the sound of rapidly departing steps.
"Thank God!" the young physician murmured, as he came back into the laboratory, "that I studied chemistry with Mr. Cavanagh, or I might not know just what antidote was required here."