But there was little need of their assistance. Sally Gardiner stood regarding Bernardine, her hands hanging by her sides, her eyes staring eagerly at the intruder.
"You here!" she muttered, in an almost inaudible voice. "What are you doing in his sick-room, you whom he always loved instead of me? He married me from a sense of honor, but he loved you, and never ceased to let me understand that to be the case. What are you doing here now—you of all other women?"
"Come with me quietly into the other room and I will tell you how it happens that I am here—in his home," whispered Bernardine, huskily.
"No," she shrieked, laughing a hard, jeering, terrible laugh in Bernardine's white, pain-drawn face as she battled fiercely to shake off the doctor's hold of her pinioned arms. "I shall not go—I shall not leave my post until he is dead! Do you hear?—until he is dead! I shall not save him for you! I'd rather be his widow than his unloved wife!"
"Come!" whispered Bernardine, sternly. "A human life is at stake—he is dying. You must come with me and let the doctor be free to do his work. I command you to come!" she added, in a stern, ringing, sonorous voice that seemed to thrill the other to her very heart's core and fascinate her—ay, fairly paralyze her will-power. "Come!" repeated Bernardine, laying a hand on her shoulder—"come out into the grounds with me, Mrs. Gardiner—out into the fresh air. I have something to tell you. I had an encounter with Victor Lamont last night," she added in a whisper, her eyes fixed steadily on the young wife as she slowly uttered the words.
Their effect was magical on Sally Gardiner. She reeled forward like one about to faint.
"Let me go out into the grounds alone," she cried, hoarsely. "I must collect my scattered thoughts. Come to me there in half an hour, and tell me. I—I can listen to you then."
And with these words, the fiery creature left the room, staggering rather than walking through the open French window.
The doctor caught Bernardine's hand in his.
"If he lives, it will be to your strategy that he owes his life," he said, hurriedly. "Now leave the room quickly. In ten minutes I will call you, and you shall tell his mother and sister whether it be life or death."