I had scarcely finished reading this miserable letter before Dr. Roper, his eyes blazing with excitement, rushed into the conservatory.
"For God's sake, Halifax, come at once," he gasped. "That awful woman has found her way into the room where the body is. Her nerves have given way completely at sight of it. She has confessed that her whole abominable story is a lie—that her daughter, poor Ogilvie's first wife, has really been dead for years, and that she only invented her horrible fiction for purposes of blackmail."
"Then—then," I said with a sudden shout, which I could not repress, "we'll have a try for it."
"A try for what? Are you mad?"
"Why, Roper, don't you see?" I exclaimed. "Don't you see that if that woman's story is false, Ogilvie has nothing to die for? The drug he has taken is slow in its effects. He may be only in a state of stupor. We saved his wife—we'll have a try for his recovery, too."
"I flung the cloth off the dead man's face."
I ran from the room, and Roper, looking as if his senses had deserted him, followed me. We turned everyone out of the dining-room and locked the door. I flung the cloth off the dead man's face, and, seizing a looking-glass, held it to his lips.
"Thank God!" I exclaimed, turning to the old doctor and pointing to a faint dimness on its polished surface.
That is the story, for of course we did save Ogilvie. We had a harder fight than even that of the night before, but in the end the grim King of Terrors withdrew, and we, the humble instruments who had brought back life almost to the dead, fell on our knees in thankfulness. And Ogilvie's wife was never told the real story of that night.
