Powers, though outwardly cool, was trembling with excitement.
"I can go to her?" he asked. "You recommend it? The moment has arrived?"
"It has arrived," Herr Rauchen affirmed. "She is strong enough to bear your presence—to talk in moderation. I will await here the result. It is an experiment the most interesting of any I have ever known."
Powers moved toward the door, but the professor called him back.
"My young friend," he said, "one moment. There's no hurry. I would ask a question."
"Well?"
"You say the room is the same, the nurse is the same. Good! Have you the clothes she arrived in?"
"They are there in full view," Powers answered. "She has come back to consciousness among precisely the same surroundings as when she first came to me eight months ago."
"Very good indeed," the professor declared. "Now you shall go to her. Meanwhile, I wait for you here."
Once more Powers hesitated, with his foot upon the threshold of her room. It seemed so short a time ago since he stood there before on his way to his first interview with her since his great experiment. But his interest was no longer scientific. He knew very well that the next few minutes must make or mar his life.