he jerked back, his face gray with
shock.

"My God!" he gasped. "She's dead! Her body's getting cold! She's dead!"
His face twisted in a grimace of emotional agony.

"No!" contradicted the neurologist.

"What!"

"No," repeated the other. "She's not dead, young man."

"Then what--"

"The closest I can come to it in language you'd understand is to say
that she's falling into a state of suspended animation," the doctor
answered. "Her bodily functions are slowing down. I believe this will
continue--that eventually her muscles will tighten into catalepsy."

"What will happen eventually?" Professor Duchard broke in.

The neurologist shrugged. "I don't know, professor. My hope is that she
simply will continue to lie in a coma. But there is always the
possibility that the thread of life will break. That she will die
without recovering consciousness--"

"You can't let her!" cried Mark hysterically, unable to restrain himself
longer. "She musn't die! She musn't! You've got to do something, doctor!
There must be a way--"

"--if it can be found!" interrupted Professor Duchard. He again gripped
the younger man's arm. "Do not let yourself go to pieces, my boy. That
will not help.

"Because you, yourself, are a man of action, you want our friend, here,
to prescribe for Elaine with the same speed and certainty that you would
go after a hot news story. Only that is not the way of science, Mark. We
must be patient and hope for the best, content in the knowledge that
everything possible is being done for Elaine."

He turned to the neurologist.

"What do you recommend, doctor?"

"There's only one thing to do, Professor Duchard. We must place the girl
in a hospital, where she can be taken care of properly and kept under
observation."

The aged scientist nodded. "Yes. I thought that would be your
suggestion."

"If you'll excuse me," the doctor continued, "I shall use your telephone
to make the necessary arrangements."

He left the room.

* * * * *

Beside the bed, Mark Carter still stared dumbly down at the girl he
loved. The girl who tomorrow--no, today, for it was nearly morning
now--was to have become his wife. He tried to speak, but his throat was
too twisted and thick with pain for words to come. His broad shoulders
were slumped. His brown eyes blurred with tears. A queer, strained sound
of awful grief tore itself from somewhere deep within his chest, like
the moan of an animal i