"It was past midnight," said the doctor, "when I made the discovery, with which you are now acquainted. I went at once to Mr. Keller. He had fortunately not gone to bed; and he accompanied me to the Deadhouse. Knowing the overseer's private door, at the side of the building, I was able to rouse him with very little delay. In the excitement that possessed me, I spoke of the revival as a possible thing in the hearing of the servants. The whole household accompanied us to the Deadhouse, at the opposite extremity of the building. What we saw there, I am utterly incapable of describing to you. I was in time to take the necessary measures for keeping Mrs. Wagner composed, and for removing her without injury to Mr. Keller's house. Having successfully accomplished this, I presumed that my anxieties were at an end. I was completely mistaken."
"You refer to Madame Fontaine, I suppose?"
"No; I refer to Jack. The poor wretch's ignorant faith had unquestionably saved his mistress's life. I should never have ventured (even if I had been acquainted with the result of the Professor's experiment, at an earlier hour) to run the desperate risk, which Jack confronted without hesitation. The events of the night (aggravated by the brandy that Schwartz had given to him) had completely overthrown the balance of his feeble brain. He was as mad, for the time being, as ever he could have been in Bedlam. With some difficulty, I prevailed on him to take a composing mixture. He objected irritably to trust me; and, even when the mixture had begun to quiet him, he was ungrateful enough to speak contemptuously of what I had done for him. 'I had a much better remedy than yours,' he said, 'made by a man who was worth a hundred of you. Schwartz and I were fools enough to give it to Mrs. Housekeeper, last night.' I thought nothing of this—it was one of the eccentricities which were to be expected from him, in his condition. I left him quietly asleep; and I was about to go home, and get a little rest myself—when Mr. Keller's son stopped me in the hall. 'Do go and see Madame Fontaine,' he said; 'Minna is alarmed about her mother.' I went upstairs again directly."
"Had you noticed anything remarkable in Madame Fontaine," I asked, "before Fritz spoke to you?"
"I noticed, at the Deadhouse, that she looked frightened out of her senses; and I was a little surprised—holding the opinion I did of her—that such a woman should show so much sensibility. Mr. Keller took charge of her, on our way back to the house. I was quite unprepared for what I saw afterwards, when I went to her room at Fritz's request.
"Did you discover the resemblance to Mr. Keller's illness?"
"No—not till afterwards. She sent her daughter out of the room; and I thought she looked at me strangely, when we were alone. 'I want the paper that I gave you in the street, last night,' she said. I asked her why she wanted it. She seemed not to know how to reply; she became excited and confused. 'To destroy it, to be sure!' she burst out suddenly. 'Every bottle my husband left is destroyed—strewed here, there, and everywhere, from the Gate to the Deadhouse. Oh, I know what you think of me—I defy you!' She seemed to forget what she had said, the moment she had said it—she turned away, and opened a drawer, and took out a book closed by metal clasps. My presence in the room appeared to be a lost perception in her mind. The clasps of the book, as well as I could make it out, opened by touching some spring. I noticed that her hands trembled as they tried to find the spring. I attributed the trembling to the terrors of the night, and offered to help her. 'Let my secrets alone,' she said—and pushed the book under the pillow of her bed. It was my professional duty to assist her, if I could. Though I attached no sort of importance to what Jack had said, I thought it desirable, before I prescribed for her, to discover whether she had really taken some medicine of her own or not. She staggered back from me, on my repeating what I had heard from Jack, as if I had terrified her. 'What remedy does he mean? I drank nothing but a glass of wine. Send for him directly—I must, and will speak to him!' I told her this was impossible; I could not permit his sleep to be disturbed. 'The watchman!' she cried; 'the drunken brute! send for him.' By this time I began to conclude that there was really something wrong. I called in her daughter to look after her while I was away, and then left the room to consult with Fritz. The only hope of finding Schwartz (the night-watch at the Deadhouse being over by that time) was to apply to his sister the nurse. I knew where she lived; and Fritz most kindly offered to go to her. By the time Schwartz was found, and brought to the house, Madame Fontaine was just able to understand what he said, and no more. I began to recognize the symptoms of Mr. Keller's illness. The apathy which you remember was showing itself already. 'Leave me to die,' she said quietly; 'I deserve it.' The last effort of the distracted mind, rousing for a moment the sinking body, was made almost immediately afterwards. She raised herself on the pillow, and seized my arm. 'Mind!' she said, 'Minna is to be married on the thirteenth!' Her eyes rested steadily on me, while she spoke. At the last word, she sank back, and relapsed into the condition in which you have just seen her."
"Can you do nothing for her?"
"Nothing. Our modern science is absolutely ignorant of the poisons which Professor Fontaine's fatal ingenuity revived. Slow poisoning by reiterated doses, in small quantities, we understand. But slow poisoning by one dose is so entirely beyond our experience, that medical men in general refuse to believe in it."
"Are you sure that she is poisoned?" I asked.