difficulties with women in these
matters, and the effect on the supposed dead body may be startling. You
and I will sit up together, and be in readiness. When certain symptoms
appear I shall take you in, and at the right moment we must manage to get
every one else out of the room."

I need not give our farther conversation on the subject. He entered very
fully into the details, and overcame my repulsion from them, by exciting
in me a mingled awe and curiosity concerning the possible results of his
experiment.

We prepared everything, and he instructed me in my part as assistant. He
had not told Bertha of his absolute conviction that Archer would not
survive through the night, and endeavoured to persuade her to leave the
patient and take a night's rest. But she was obstinate, suspecting the
fact that death was at hand, and supposing that he wished merely to save
her nerves. She refused to leave the sick-room. Meunier and I sat up
together in the library, he making frequent visits to the sick-room, and
returning with the information that the case was taking precisely the
course he expected. Once he said to me, "Can you imagine any cause of
ill-feeling this woman has against her mistress, who is so devoted to
her?"

"I think there was some misunderstanding between them before her illness.
Why do you ask?"

"Because I have observed for the last five or six hours--since, I fancy,
she has lost all hope of recovery--there seems a strange prompting in her
to say something which pain and failing strength forbid her to utter; and
there is a look of hideous meaning in her eyes, which she turns
continually towards her mistress. In this disease the mind often remains
singularly clear to the last."

"I am not surprised at an indication of malevolent feeling in her," I
said. "She is a woman who has always inspired me with distrust and
dislike, but she managed to insinuate herself into her mistress's
favour." He was silent after this, looking at the fire with an air of
absorption, till he went upstairs again. He stayed away longer than
usual, and on returning, said to me quietly, "Come now."

I followed him to the chamber where death was hovering. The dark
hangings of the large bed made a background that gave a strong relief to
Bertha's pale face as I entered. She started forward as she saw me
enter, and then looked at Meunier with an expression of angry inquiry;
but he lifted up his hand as it to impose silence, w