The sound of the fall, the crash of a china vase which her hand had swept from the table, echoed startlingly through the silent house, and aroused some of its inmates. Mrs. Andrews ran upstairs and into Felix's room, saw that he was sleeping soundly, and then she hastened up another flight of steps, to the apartment occupied by the governess. The gas burned dazzlingly over the table where rested the roll of MS. and on the floor near the window lay Edna.
Ringing the bell furiously to summon her husband, and the servants, Mrs. Andrews knelt, raised the girl's head, and rubbing her cold hands, tried to rouse her. The heart beat faintly, and seemed to stop now and then, and the white, rigid face was as ghastly as if the dread kiss of Samael had indeed been pressed upon her still lips.
Finding all her restoratives ineffectual, Mrs. Andrews sent her husband for the family physician, and with the assistance of the servants, laid the girl on her bed.
When the doctor arrived and questioned her, she could furnish no clew to the cause of the attack, save by pointing to the table, where pen and paper showed that the sufferer had been at work.
Edna opened her eyes at last, and looked around at the group of anxious faces, but in a moment the spasm of pain returned. Twice she muttered something, and putting his ear close to her mouth, the doctor heard her whispering to herself: "Never mind; it is done at last! Now I can rest."
An hour elapsed before the paroxysms entirely subsided, and then, with her ivory-like hands clasped and thrown up over her head, the governess slept heavily, dreamlessly.
For two days she remained in her own apartment, and on the morning of the third came down to the schoolroom, with a slow, weary step and a bloodless face, and a feeling of hopeless helplessness.
She dispatched her MS. to the publisher to whom she had resolved to offer it, and, leaning far back in her chair, took up Felix's Greek grammar.
Since the days of Dionysius Thrax, it had probably never appeared so tedious, so intolerably tiresome, as she found it now, and she felt relieved, almost grateful when Mrs. Andrews sent for her to come to the library, where Dr. Howell was waiting to see her.
Seating himself beside her, the physician examined her countenance and pulse, and put his ear close to her heart.
"Miss Earl, have you had many such attacks as the one whose effects have not yet passed away?"
"This is the second time I have suffered so severely; though very frequently I find a disagreeable fluttering about my heart, which is not very painful."