"She sees! she sees!" cried the doctor, with an alacrity that seemed to us of good omen.
"She is saved!" exclaimed Catherine, clasping her hands, as if in thanks to Heaven.
"No rash expectation, madame!" said Doctor Ralph, austerely and almost harshly. "I have already told you this semblance of life is deceptive. It is like galvanism which gives motion to a dead body, and a breath may snap the invisible cord which binds this child to life." Then, turning to me, he added: "It will be your turn, monsieur, presently to endeavour to strengthen that feeble thread. I solemnly declare, if that child lives, which, alas! I scarcely dare to hope, it is to you she will owe it, for known science does not work such miracles."
"God alone can work them," said Frank, in a solemn voice.
"Or certain mysterious and magnetic influences which one must concede without understanding them," added the doctor.
The stimulus of the potion upon Irene became more and more apparent. Two or three times she sighed deeply, held forth her arms, and then murmured, in a feeble voice: "Mother! Arthur!"
"Now," said the doctor, "take one of the child's hands in yours, monsieur, and let the other be in her mother's; come as close to her as possible, and call her, softly, slowly, so that the sound may have time to reach her feeble hearing."
I took hold of one of Irene's hands, her mother held the other.
Her hand was cold and moist.
I leaned over Irene. Her big eyes, looking still larger since her illness, wandered around as if in search of some one.