Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 2 (1927-08).djvu/100



HE four living in the room froze to stunned unbelief. Saul stared wildly at Arn's still white face, dumbly, like a man in a trance. His voice rose to a frantic scream.

"God! What have I done! Damn, damn, damn, the stuff! I have killed my mother!" He hurled the bottle and needle from him savagely, crashing them against the floor, and the odor of ether rose in the air as he rushed from the room.

The three he left behind looked at each other with terrified eyes as they heard his feet go running away from the laboratory down the hard-packed path into the night.

"He'll do something desperate!" Cloud cried shakily.

"No," Mrs. Blauvette answered with a strange serenity, a calm they could not understand. "He will go to Helene."

Whittly started. It was the first time he had ever heard her mention the girl's name. Helene had told him something of the strained silence that had existed between her and Saul's mother from the first, and he had kept what he knew to himself. But he felt intuitively that Mrs. Blauvette was right. Saul had gone to Helene.

"She will hold him steady if anyone can," he said, forcing himself to speak calmly. "We must take care of Arn. Mrs. Blauvette, are you too tired to give us a little aid?"

"No. I think I shall never be tired again." She smiled, and Whittly saw her meaning in her face. "But I am not afraid. Already the pain has lessened in my side. Death lay so close ahead anyway. What does it matter? It is worth so much to be free from pain. But you two must be kind to Saul. He will need you, and he will need—Helene. I wish—I wish I could have seen her."

"Oh, here, Mrs. Blauvette, we needn't take that view of it," Whittly cut in briskly. "We must hang on to hope, at least. There are a number of things to think of. Arn was much nearer the end of his rope than you. It may be that he was simply in too far advanced a stage to be saved. The human body is a great machine. Give it half a chance and it will accomplish wonders, heal from incredible wounds and ravages. But it's like any other machine—it can be worn too badly for any repair. That may very logically have been the case with Arn."

"Yes, I had thought of that." Mrs. Blauvette nodded, turning to look at Cloud. "Do you have anything to offer, John?"

"I don't exactly know." Cloud frowned and hesitated. "But there may be something in this, too. It has acted on Henry exactly as 510 acted 242