Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 4 (1926-10).djvu/125

 the doctor's request. Perhaps some day he will publish a technical treatise on the matter, but not until many seasons have passed and memory has rather dulled until it fails to cut.

Down in New York six days before, Coralie Winwood had died, not from any lingering or devastating illness, but merely as the result of a severe heart attack. Although Dr. Winwood and Barlow Garth were both with her at the end, neither broke down nor showed their grief in the slightest. There was no time. They were scientists—cold, calculating scientists. They worked over the lifeless body like tireless steel machines. They were summoning all their skill for one supreme experiment. For months they had been practising their theories on dead dogs and cats. Now they were trying them on Coralie Winwood. It was not a shocking experiment, nor was there anything even slightly revolting about it. They were simply trying to bring Coralie Winwood back to life by the use of adrenalin, the most powerful stimulant known, the only drug that is sufficiently strong to give the tremendous shock to the heart which is necessary to restore life. Dr. Winwood was not the first to experiment with adrenalin, nor was he the first to prove its remarkable restorative propensities. Several other scientists had preceded him. He was merely one of the developers.

Fifteen minutes after Coralie had died she was restored to life, but rationality did not return to her, for it is a proven fact that a person's brain never functions again naturally after he has been actually dead for more than seven minutes. Thus, while Coralie was apparently alive and well again, as beautiful and warm as ever, she was in reality just a living corpse, not even aware that she was alive. Dr. Winwood could not bear to have anyone see her thus so he had taken her away to Lost Lake, his summer home, hidden in the heart of the Adirondacks.

was a spiritualist. He believed there was a possible way for him to get into touch with the spirit of Coralie. If he could do so, he reasoned, he would then be possessed of both the physical and spiritual bodies of the girl whom he had loved more than anything else in the world. True, body and soul would be separated, but in any event he would be happy if he possessed them both. If his friends had known the workings of his mind, they would have thought him mad. But luckily nobody knew except Barlow Garth, and Barlow believed in his master utterly. Together they had performed many apparently impossible experiments. Neither of them admitted a thing impossible until it was proved so. And since there is always opportunity for further research, the only thing they admitted impossible was impossibility itself.

Although Coralie had lost her real personality, the wraithlike personality which she had assumed was distinctly alluring. She fascinated by her eery quaintness. She never seemed to truly know either Dr. Winwood or Barlow Garth. She ate the food they set before her, sat with them in the evenings before the open fire, and frequently went on rambles with them into the woodland. Yet never did she show by the faintest sign that she knew them. She would have gone away peacefully with anybody. To her, in her present condition, all people were the same. But what that sameness was is open to speculation.

When she was rambling about the forest trails or along the winding mountain paths she was like a dream awakened. Her usually pale face flushed with desire. Her eyes shone with an intense fire. As she walked