She pushed the door open with a convulsive pressure, and, still
retaining hold of my hand, literally dragged me upstairs to what
seemed to be a back offshoot from the main building, as high,
perhaps, as the fourth story. In a moment more I found myself in a
moderate-sized chamber, lit by a single lamp. In one corner,
stretched motionless on a wretched pallet bed, I beheld what I
supposed to be the figure of my patient.
"He is there," said the girl; "go to him. See if he is dead--I
dare not look."
I made my way as well as I could through the numberless dilapidated
chemical instruments with which the room was littered. A French
chafing dish supported on an iron tripod had been overturned, and
was lying across the floor, while the charcoal, still warm, was
scattered around in various directions. Crucibles, alembics, and
retorts were confusedly piled in various corners, and on a small
table I saw distributed in separate bottles a number of mineral and
metallic substances, which I recognized as antimony, mercury,
plumbago, arsenic, borax, etc. It was veritably the apartment of a
poor chemist.
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