“There’s a second room,” said Boyne, pointing to a door. “The sound comes from there.”
He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch darkness, with the dead man on the floor.
“For heaven’s sake, give me a drop of whisky,” said the Professor, “or I shall faint.”
Presently the door opened and Lord Boyne appeared in the shaft of light. He beckoned to his companions.
“It is a woman in childbirth,” he said in his even, tired voice. “We must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything about such things?”
They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honor, they stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature.
“My wife had no child,” said McCurdie.
“I’ve avoided women all my life,” said Biggleswade.
“And I’ve been too busy to think of them. God forgive me,” said Boyne.
The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. Boyne, accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering back beneath rugs and traveling bags which could supply clean linen and needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman’s strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that nameless hovel, with death on the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never yet stood before so great a mystery.