As I did so my arm inadvertently struck the bottle of acid, knocking it over on the top of the desk. Its contents streamed out saturating the telephone wires before I could prevent it. In trying to right the bottle my hand came in contact with the acid which burned like liquid fire, and I cried out in pain.
Craig hastily laid down the receiver, seized me and rushed me to the back of the laboratory where he drenched my hand with a neutralizing liquid.
He bound up the wounds caused by the acid, which proved to be slight, after all, and then returned to the telephone.
To his evident annoyance, he discovered that the acid had burned through the wires and cut off all connection.
Though I did not know it, my hand was, in a sense at least, the hand of fate.
At the other end of the line, Elaine was listening impatiently for a response to her first eager words of inquiry. She was astounded to find, at last, that Kennedy had apparently left the telephone without any explanation or apology.
"Why—he rang off," she exclaimed angrily to herself, as she hung up the receiver and left the room.
She rejoined her Aunt Josephine and Bennett who had been chatting together in the drawing room, still wondering at the queer rebuff she had, seemingly, experienced.
Bennett rose to go, and, as he parted from Elaine, found an opportunity to whisper a few words reminding her of her promised reply on the morrow.
Piqued, at Kennedy, she flashed Bennett a meaning glance which gave him to understand that his suit was not hopeless.