Part 3 (2/2)
With a resounding noise Es front door With his hat on his head he cleared the stairs Molly stood wringing her hands on the threshold of Mrs Avery's roo prescription left by a blundering rival His blazing eye concentrated itself on the patient like a burning-glass That which had been Jean Avery, half reclining, held against her husband's heart, lay unresponsive One arht down
”Change the position!” cried Dr Thorne loudly ”Put her head down--so--flat--perfectly horizontal Now get out of my way--the whole of you”
He knelt beside the bed, and with great gentleness, curiously at contrast with his iry manner, put his ear to Jean's heart
”It's dead she is The other doctor do be sayin' so,” sobbed Molly, who found it perplexing that Mr Avery did not speak, and felt that the courtesies of the distressing occasion devolved upon herself Dr Thorne held up an ier In the stillness which obeyed him the clock on the mantel ticked obtrusively, like the rhythanism
At the instant when he reached her side, Dr Thorne had laid Jean's hanging hand gently upon the bed, war it as he did so But he had paid no attention to it otherwise till nohen he was seen to put his fingers on the wrist It occurred to Avery that the physician did this rather to satisfy or to sustain hope in the family than from any definite end which he hied to articulate
”Is there any pulse?”
”No”
”Does her heart beat?”
Dr Thornea colorless, odorless liquid between her lips His expression of indignation deepened One e with death His first impulse to express that emotion noisily had passed He issued his orders with perfect quiet and consummate self-possession, but the family fled before them like leaves before the wind Stimulants, hot water, hot stones, fell into the doctor's hands He took control of the despairing household as a great general takes coid, he flung his whole being against the fate which had snatched his old patient beyond his rescue His face was alhts with death!” cried Molly, in uncontrollable excitehtdress, stole in, and leaned against the door; the child was too frightened to cry The baby had gone to sleep The house grew ominously still The mantel clock struck the half-hour It was now half-past eleven Avery glanced at the physician's face, and buried his own in his hands
The doctor rose, and stood frowning He seemed to hesitate for the first time since he had been in the room
”Is there no heart-beat yet? Can't you detect anything?” asked Avery again He could not help it Dr Thorne looked at him; the physician seemed to treat the question as he would an insult
”When I have anything to say, I 'll say it,” he answered roughly He stood pondering
”A glass!” he called peremptorily Molly handed hilass! A mirror!”
Solass The physician held it to her lips, and laid it down After aover the body put it to the woain, and studied it intently for some lance at the glass
”How long,” demanded Dr Thorne suddenly, ”has she been like this?”
”I found her so when I ca had she been alone?”
”I went out at twenty minutes past ten I went to have a tooth extracted That was forty minutes”
”Did she speak to you when you went out?”
”Yes--she spoke to me”
”What did she say?”
Marshall Avery made no reply
”Were there any symptoms of this heart-failure then? Out with it!--No Never h”
The clock on the mantel struck the quarter before twelve
”She has been as she is an hour and a quarter,” said Dr Thorne His voice and , with a dark face
”Do you call her dead?” entreated Avery It seemed to him that he had reached the limit of endurance He would pull the worst down on his head at one toppling blow
”No!” cried the physician, in a deep, reverberating tone
”But is it death?” persisted Avery wildly
”I do not know,” said Dr Thorne
”Do you give her up?”
”No!” thundered Dr Thorne again ”The drowned have been resuscitated after six hours,” he added between his teeth ”That's the latest contention”
At this er su, and pealed and thundered at the door Some one laid upon the bed within the doctor's reach a small pasteboard box He opened it in silence, and took frolass This he broke upon a handkerchief, and held the linen cautiously to Jean's face A powerful, pungent odor filled the room Avery felt his head whirl as he breathed it The doctor removed the handkerchief and scrutinized Jean's face Neither hope nor despair could be detected on his own Without a word he went to work again
Not discarding, but not now depending altogether on the aid of warmth, stimulants, and the remedies upon which he had been trained to rely in his duels with death, the physician turned the force of his will and his skill in the direction of another class of experie as he must, he put certain of the modern processes of artificial respiration to the proof He did not allow himself to be haer involved in lifting the patient's arms above her head; for Jean had passed far beyond all ordinary perils Obstacles seerew dogged and grientleness, and with an indorandeur to his bearing
Avery looked on with dull, blind eyes; he felt that he itnessing an unsuccessful attean to resent it as an interference with the sanctity of death He began to wish that the doctor would let his wife alone The clock on the mantel struck twelve Pink had fallen asleep, and somebody had carried her back to her own bed The toether by the door The physician had ceased to speak to any person His square jaws caether like steel machinery that had been locked In his eyes iathered; but no one could see his eyes The clock tiht
Avery had now moved round to the other side of the bed; he buried his face in his wife's pillow, and, unobserved, put out his hand to touch her He reached and clasped her thin left hand on which her wedding-ring hung loosely Her fingers were not very cold,--he had often known them colder when she was ill,--and as his hand closed over them it seemed to him for a wild instant that hers melted within it; that it relaxed, or warht He raised his head The clock called half-past twelve Dr Thorne was holding the little ain A silvery filhty as joy--clouded it from end to end
”Jean Avery!” cried the physician, in a ringing tone
Afterwards Avery thought of that other Healer who summoned his dearest friend from the retreat of death ”in a loud voice” But at the ently and turned her face, and her husband's eyes were the first she sahen the light of her own high soul returned to hers
In the dim of the dawn Avery followed the exhausted physician into the hall, and led him to an empty room
”Rest, if you can, doctor,” he pleaded; ”we can call you If she sleep, she shall do well,” he added in a broken voice The e, she may sleep one hour Call me by then,” said Dr Thorne abstractedly ”And telephonehere” He turned his face to theAvery, glancing at it in the gray light, saw that great tears were falling unashamed down the doctor's cheeks
”These sudden deaths are so horrible!” heafter this, when the eminent physician met the fate which has been elsewhere recorded of him, and which those who have read his memoirs may recall, Marshall Avery remembered these words; and the expression of the man's face as he uttered them
He went back to his wife's room, and lay down on the bed by her side She slept like some sweet child as tired out with a nervous strain, and would wake, by the sanctities of Nature, refreshed for vigorous life He dared not fall asleep himself for a careless rily Her pulse beat weakly yet, but with some steadiness, and rose in volu to the flood
Off there on the Shoals, reaching up around the gray Cape, inch upon patient inch, the waves climbed to their appointed places With the the hty code, advanced, and held its own