And then he jerked it out. Karl had been taken ill—pain, fever, he feared appendicitis. He had two other doctors see him; they agreed that he must be operated on immediately. They brought him here. They found—conditions awful. They did all that surgery could do—every known thing was being done now, but—they did not know. He had rallied a little from the operation; now he seemed to be drooping. He was in bad shape generally,—heart weakened by the shock of his blindness, intestines broken down by lack of exercise, whole system affected by changed conditions—all these things combined against him. He told the short story with his own lips white, swaying a little, seeming fairly to age as he stood there.
Her face had been changing as she listened. He had never seen a human face look as hers did then; he had never heard a human voice sound as hers sounded when she said: "Dr. Parkman, you are mistaken." She looked him straight in the eye—a look which held the whole force of her being. "I say you are mistaken. We will go back in here now to Karl. You and I together are going to save him."
There was the light from higher worlds in her eye as she went back, in her voice a force which men have never named or understood. And something which emanated from her took hold of every one who came into that room. There was more than the resources of medical science at work now.
On her knees beside the bed, her arm about him, passionately shielding him from the dark forces around him, her face often touching his as if reassuring him, Ernestine spoke to Karl, quietly, tenderly, forcefully, love's own intuition telling her how much to say, when to speak. By her warm body which loved him, by her great spirit which claimed him, she would hold him from the outgoing tide. Her voice could rouse him where other stimulants failed; the only effort he made was the tightening of his hand over hers, and sometimes he smiled a little as he felt her close to him.
Two hours went by; the lines in Dr. Parkman's face were deepening. They worked on unfalteringly—hypodermics, heat, rubbing, oxygen, all those things with which man seeks to deceive himself, and for which the foe, with the tolerance of power, is willing to wait. But their faces were changing. The call of the outgoing tide, that tide over which human determination has not learned to prevail, was coming close. They worked on, for they were trained to work on, even through the sense of their own futility.
Looking about her Ernestine saw it all, and held him with a passionate protectiveness. If all else failed, her arms—arms to which he had ever come for help and consolation—could surely hold him! The cold fear crept farther and farther into her heart, and as it crept on her arms about him tightened. Not while she held him like this! Oh not while she held him like this!
And then a frenzy possessed her. That she should sit here powerless—weeping—despairing, surrendering, while Karl slipped from her! She must do something—say something—something to hold him firm—call him back—make him understand that he must fight!
Suddenly a light broke over her face. She looked at Dr. Parkman, who was bending over Karl. "I will tell him," she whispered—"what I did—the secret—about the work."
He hesitated; medically his judgment was against it; and then, white to the lips with the horror of the admission he faced the fact that this had passed beyond things medical. Let her try where he had failed. Through a rush of uncontrollable tears he nodded yes.
And she did tell him,—in words which were not sentences, with sharp flashes of thought—such flashes as alone could penetrate the semi-consciousness into which she must reach; after a moment of pause in which to gather herself together for the great battle of her life, with concentration, illumination, with a piercing eloquence which brought hot tears to every cheek, and deep, deep prayers to hearts which would have said they did not know how to pray—a woman fighting for the man she loved, human love at its whitest heat pitted against destiny—she told him.