"Oh," whimpered that old hypocrite, "I beg your pardon; I am so agitated!" But his agitation seemed to spring mainly from the fact that the antidote Frank brought was in powder and not in a bottle, which might have been broken in their encounter.
Dr. Sellick, who saw nothing but the packet Frank held, grasped the remedy and dashed back into the room. Frank followed and stood in anguished suspense within the open doorway. Huckins crouched and murmured to himself on the stair.
"Can we get her to take it? Is there hope?" murmured Emma.
No word came in reply; the Doctor was looking fixedly at his patient.
"Frank," he said solemnly, "come and take her hand in yours. Nothing else will ever make her unlock her lips."
Frank, reeling in his misery, entered and fell at her feet.
"Hermione," he endeavored to say, but the word would not come. Breaking into sobs he took her hand and laid his forehead upon it. Would that anguish of the beloved one arouse her? Dr. Sellick and Emma drew near together in their anxiety and watched. Suddenly a murmur escaped from the former, and he bent rapidly forward. The close-locked lips were parting, parting so slowly, so imperceptibly, that only a physician's eye could see it. Waiting till they were opened enough to show the pearly teeth, he stooped and whispered in Frank's ear. Instantly the almost overwhelmed lover, roused, saw this evidence of existing life, and in his frenzied relief imprinted one wild kiss upon the hand he held. It seemed to move her, to reach her heart, to stay the soul just hovering on the confines of life, for the lips parted further, the lids of the eyes trembled, and before the reaction came, Dr. Sellick had succeeded in giving her a few grains of the impalpable powder he was holding.
"It will either kill or restore her," said he. "In five minutes we shall know the result."
And when at the end of those five minutes they heard a soft sigh, they never thought, in their sudden joy and relief, to look for the sneaking figure trembling on the staircase, who, at this first sign of reviving life in one he thought dead, slid from his station and went creeping down the stairs, with baffled looks that would have frightened even Doris had she seen them.