Page:The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc (1900).djvu/28

28 He seated himself again at the chemical formul, indifferent to the anxiety of the girl that stood before him.

"Will you be kind enough to come at once?" pleaded Irène. “Mademoiselle is unconscious."

At the word "unconscious" Doctor Satiani seemed to awaken from his indifference.

"Mademoiselle may die if you do not come."

After a pause, he said, without enthusiasm, "Go and say that I am coming."

Irène flitted out; and the doctor, after gathering together the sheets of paper he had been studying, also left.

The cottage where Madeline lived was a modest wooden structure, a story and a half high, three rooms long, with a side room to the left. It was set back in a spacious garden that was generously shaded by massive oak trees, and screened here and there by nooks of shrubbery and sweet-scented flowers, about which curled a well-kept walk. Here she had played and read every summer of her life.

The anxiety on the interior of the house was in great contrast to the calm of the