oung officer was ready, and the
house-physician was waiting to give his assistance. The stimulation of
Will and Electricity was applied to resuscitate the patient--but with
the smallest success: there was only a faint flutter, a passing slight
rigidity of the muscles, and all seemed again as it had been. The
exhausting nature of the operation or experiment forbade its immediate
repetition. Disappointment pervaded the doctor's being, though it did
not appear in the doctor's manner.

"We'll try again in half an hour," said he to his assistant, and turned
away to complete his round of the ward.

At the end of the half-hour, Lefevre and the house-physician were again
by Lady Mary's bedside. Again, with fine but firm touch, Lefevre stroked
nerves and muscles to stimulate them into normal action; again he and
his assistant put out their electrical force through the electrode; and
again the result was nothing but a passing galvanic quiver. The doctor,
though he maintained his professional calm, was smitten with alarm,--as
a man is who, walking through darkness and danger to the rescue of a
friend, finds himself stopped by an unscalable wall. While he sought
fresh means of help, his patient might pass beyond his reach. He did not
think she would--he hoped she would not; but her condition, so
obstinately resistant to his restoratives, was so peculiar, that he
could not in the least determine the issue. Imagination and speculation
were excited, and he asked himself whether, after all, the explanation
of his failure might not be of the simplest--a difference of sex! The
secrets of nature, so far as he had discovered, were of such amazing
simplicity, that it would not surprise him now to find that the
electrical force of a man varied vitally from that of a woman. He
explained this suspicion to his assistant.

"I think," said he, "we must make another attempt, for her condition may
become the more serious the longer it is left. We'll set the Sister and
the nurse to try this time, and we'll turn her bed north and south, in
the line of the earth's magnetism." But just then the lady's father, the
old Lord Rivercourt, appeared in response to the doctor's telegram, and
the experiment with the women had to wait. The old lord was naturally
filled with wonder and anxiety when he saw his apparently lifeless
daughter. He was amazed that she should have been overcome by such
influence as, he understood, the old gentleman must wield. She had