She caught her breath.
In another minute she was stumbling up the narrow curling stair to the loft above.
Ten minutes later she stood in the center of the laboratory, lined with its shelves of crooked-necked retorts and bottles, her search ended, the blood shrinking from her heart, her hand clutching a small phial.
Gasping, she seized a slender graduated glass and hurried down. She ran to the chapel door and fastened it, hearing while she slid the bolt, the steps of the cleric pacing up and down without.
As she stood again at the altar, the phial in her hand, a bleak fear crossed her soul. What if it had never been anything but a story? Perhaps Juliet had never awakened really, but had died when she drank the potion! Suppose it were a poison, from which there was no awaking!
She shivered as if with cold. Better even that than life—without him!
Perhaps, too, Gordon had jested or had been mistaken. It might have been some other drug—some other quantity.
Another dread leaped upon her out of the shadow. Suppose it were the right drug—that its effect would be as he had said. What, then? In her agony she had thought only of escape from the hour’s dilemma. There would be an afterward. And who would know she only slept? She dared not trust to Elise—her fright would betray her. She dared not leave a writing lest other eyes than Gordon’s should see and understand. Suppose she did it, and it succeeded, and he came afterward. He would deem her dead in truth,—that was what Romeo had thought!—a victim of her own despair. They would bear her to the Gamba vault cold and coffined, to wake beside her father, without Juliet’s hope of rescue. Her brain rocked with hysterical terror. If Gordon only knew, she would dare all—dare that worst. But how could she let him know? Even if he were here now she would have neither time nor opportunity. Her half-hour of grace was almost up.
Yet—if he saw her lying there, apparently lifeless, and beside her that book and phial—would he remember what he had said? Would he guess? Oh God, would he?
A warning knock sounded at the chapel door.