“I don't know,” she whispered. “The bottle was full. I took them all.”
“That is impossible,” I argued, foolishly. “Two grains would have killed you. One grain, even.”
“I took them all,” she repeated. “I wanted so to die. I thought for a while that I was dying. Then I became dreadfully ill. I have been so ill, Anthony!”
All at once a note of relief had come into her voice—as if it meant something to her, after all, to have me there with her, and to be able to talk with me.
I felt that. But it was not the time to think of myself.
I stood up. But she clung to one of my hands, and I had to bend a little. I was trying to think—What do they give for morphine poisoning? What are the antidotes?... Stimulants, surely.
I had some strychnine in my little medicine-chest. I gently withdrew my hand, and went into my room to look for it.
I felt uncertain about this treatment, for I am no physician. But it might be that there was no time to lose. She was weak, and extremely nervous. The coldness of her hands led me to believe that at some moment after she took the drug her heart action must have all but stopped.
Standing there, in my disordered room—for my steamer trunk was open, my clothes still lay in rumpled heaps on the bed, the cluttered bureau drawers stood about on chairs and on the table—I made up my mind to give her the strychnine. I did not realize then that there were physicians to be had. I felt only our remoteness from the conveniences of civilized life, here in this little hotel in the Tartar City.
It would doubtless have been better to administer the stimulant by the hypodermic syringe. But I had none. So I refilled her glass with water, gave her two of my strychnine pills, and raised her head while she sipped the water.