“Oh, Heloise,” I managed to say. “I meant not to. Forgive me, dear!”
But she was not looking at me. “See who it is,” was all she said.
So I went through to my own room, closing the connecting door behind me. I hurriedly brushed my hair, then opened the door.
It was the physician from the English mission. He was a young man, who looked at me coolly and with some curiosity.
I told him what had happened.
He weighed the morphine bottle in his hand, and pursed his lips over it.
“She must have taken between ten and twenty grains of the stuff,” said he, musingly.
“That, of course, is incredible,” said I.
He shook his head and replied in a casual tone for which I hated him.
“Oh, no. An overdose will act that way with some people. The system simply refuses to assimilate it or even retain it.”