the season being summer, and the
laboratory badly ventilated.

"An hour after the first symptoms of revival had astonished me, the
creature was as lively again as usual, and ate with a good appetite.
After a lapse of ten days, it is still in perfect health. This
extraordinary example of the action and reaction of the ingredients of
the poison and the ingredients of the antidote on each other, and on the
sources of life, deserves, and shall have, the most careful
investigation. May I live to carry the inquiry through to some good use,
and to record it on another page!"

There was no other page, and no further record. The Professor's last
scientific aspiration had not been fulfilled.

VII

"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