He said no more but ran out of the shop. While he was gone I paced up and down in a fever of impatience. Every minute seemed an hour, and as I looked at my watch and realized that if I wished to get back to the hotel within the time specified by Pharos I had only ten minutes in which to do it, I felt as if my heart would stop beating. In reality the man was not gone five minutes, and when he burst into the shop again he waved two bottles triumphantly above his head.
"There's not another man in Hamburg could have got them!" he cried with justifiable pride. "Now I can make it up for you."
Five minutes later he handed the prescription to me.
"I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently for your kindness," I said as I took it. "If I can get back with it in time you will have saved a life that I love more than my own. I do not know how to reward you, but if you will accept this and wear it as a souvenir of the service you have rendered me, I hope you will do so."
So saying, I took from my pocket my gold watch and chain and handed them across the counter to him. Then, without waiting for an expression of his gratitude, I passed into the street and, hailing a cab, bade the man drive me as fast as his horse could go to my hotel.
Reaching it, I paid him with the first coin I took from my pocket and ran upstairs. What my feelings were as I approached the room where I had left Pharos and Valerie together I must leave you to imagine. With a heart beating like a sledge-hammer I softly turned the handle of the door and stole in, scarcely daring to look in the direction of the sofa. However, I might have spared myself the pain, for neither Pharos nor Valerie were there, but just as I was wondering what could have become of them the former entered the room.
"Have you got it?" he inquired eagerly, his voice trembling with emotion.
"I have," I answered, and handed him the medicine. "Here it is. At one time I began to think I should have to come back without it."
"Another ten minutes and I can promise you you would have been too late," he answered. "I have carried her to her room and placed her upon her bed. You must remain here and endeavour to prevent any one suspecting what is the matter. If your medicine proves what I hope, she should be sleeping quietly in an hour's time, and on the high road to recovery in two. But remember this, if the people in this house receive any hint of what she is suffering from they will remove her to the hospital at once, and in that case, I pledge you my word, she will be dead before morning."
"You need have no fear on that score," I answered. "They shall hear nothing from me."