The Professor was sitting up in bed a mere wreck, but with expectation on every feature. He was trembling visibly.
‘That voice!’ he whispered wildly—‘that voice! I know it. Long years ago I knew it. Boy, speak—tell me, whose voice was that?’
Wyndham knelt down beside him, and took his hand in his. He, too, was trembling excessively, and his eyes were full of tears.
‘Sir,’ he said softly, ‘she is alive.’
‘She—she—who?’ asked the Professor. He bent forward; his features were working.
‘That girl ... last night.... She lives, sir. Your experiment has not failed, after all.’
He feared to look at the Professor when he had said this, and bent his head, leaning his forehead on the wrinkled hand he held. It quivered slightly beneath him, but not much, and presently the old man spoke.
‘She lives?’ His voice was stronger now. Wyndham looked up, and found the Professor looking almost his normal self, and with that expression in his eyes that the young man knew as meaning a sharp calculation.
‘Yes; I have spoken to her. Will you see her?’
‘No.’ The Professor silenced him by a gesture. He was evidently in the midst of a quick calculation now.