In the extremity of terror Elfie dispatched first her father and then Captain Ethel, who were both watching the night out in the library, to fetch the physician.
But Dr. Burney happened to be with a lady patient whom he could not leave abruptly, and so it followed that the sun rose before he made his appearance by Erminie’s bedside.
A fearful, a terrible vision, met him there. The beautiful and angelic girl seemed to be turned into a raging and foaming demoniac; and it required the united efforts of Elfie and Catherine to hold her down on her bed.
Violent remedies had to be resorted to now to allay the frightful cerebral excitement—cupping, leeching and bleeding were tried in turn; and in reducing the sufferer to calmness, they almost reduced her to death.
And her medical attendant knew, and her anxious friend feared, that as the second attack of frenzy had been more violent than the first, so the third attack must be the most violent, and would probably end in death.
Thus the approaching night was anticipated in horrible dread.
Meanwhile Erminie lay in the collapse of exhaustion—pale and faded as a broken lily—without motion, speech, or color, almost without blood, breath, or life.
From time to time Elfie, weeping and watching, moistened the poor girl’s lips with a little melted ice.
Towards evening there seemed to be a change. Erminie moved and sighed. And then opened her eyes and breathed.
Elfie bent over her.