Gilmour leered as he tightened his grip; then the scientist screamed chokingly. With his senses failing, he suddenly realized that here was no bluff; he was looking into the face of death itself.
"Don't," he sobbed. "I will; I swear I will."
"Good," said Gilmour. "Somehow I thought you would," and with a chuckle that sounded like the last rattle of a corpse, he released his grip. He opened be drawer into which Neville had placed he Seventh Serum, and took' out the phial with a look of deep loathing upon his face.
"Here," he said, curtly. "Change her k, and be quick, for every time I think of it, my brain goes funny and I want to kill you!"
"That is of no use now," answered Neville soberly. His approach to the gates of seemed to have brought his sanity back to him. "The smallest grain of that would kill him now-"
"Don't say 'him'!" screamed Gilmour, with a sudden burst of passion, "I tell you it's her, Jeanette. Why won't that do; it did well enough at first. Don't try to fool me-or, by heaven, you'll be sorry."
"Try to be calm," said Neville, his age increasing with the minutes. "I told you that this serum was for neutralizing the secretion of the female. I need a slightly different formula for the male. Try to compose yourself, and I will prepare it. Don't worry," he said, reading the other's thoughts, "I will not f ail you, f or just now I am beginning to understand the greatness of my sin." And with a sigh that was more a groan, he commanded Gilmour to leave him while he worked.
During the hours that followed, Gilmour prowled in and out of the Mount House, carefully avoiding the laboratories, or any place he might meet the youth. To Arnold he was a thing of horror---a living tombstone, a strange monstrosity that played upon his sanity
There were many things to remind him of Jeanette and he spent the hours torn between spasms of passionate rage and deep grief. As the sun was setting, he wandered into the rose gardens and stood, hunched and lonely, breathing in the magic air of the sweet June night. He could hear the last song of the birds, and the mysterious sounds of twilight, and he thought of Jeanette with hopeless eyes and a pale drawn face. A strange foulness and a great emptiness had come into his life. He felt barred from these simple, natural things of earth. His dreams, so fine and big at dawn, were shattered. He turned and cast a look of fear at the black pile that was Mount House. He was alone, very, very much alone. The building was a sepulchre. He sat amid the roses and sobbed out his heart in an agony of black despair.
At last he rose, shivering, and returned to the house.
Professor Neville was in the laboratory, and Arnold was relieved to find the old man alone; he would not have faced the boy without losing his self-control.
"Well?" he said to Neville.
"There it is," answered Neville briefly, and he pointed to a hypodermic syringe upon the bench. "There is just enough of the serum in that to turn a man to a woman, but I am not quite sure of it. You must understand it is the first I have made and I have no subject to test it upon."
"Why does it need testing?" asked Gilmour with great suspicion. "You know what the last lot did."
"Quite so, but I would never think of injecting my daughter with this serum until I first know the consequences. You must wait until tomorrow, when I will promise a suitable subject."
"Oh, no you won't," snarled Arnold, his face a mask of fury. "Hours to me are bell! How do I know what you will feel like tomorrow? If you want a subject so much, I'll find you one now." With a mad leer he took up the syringe and, almost before Neville was aware of his intentions, he had plunged it into the old man's arm! "You will be 'the subject, you swine!" he cried, laughing like a man who is losing his reason. "Now you can study the effects very closely and at the same time see how you like your damned Seventh Serum." He leaned against the bench laughing hysterically.
"You fool; you don't know what you've done," gasped Neville, half sobbing, his face grey with terror. "Get out of my way!" he shouted, clutching at a bottle upon a shelf near Gilmour's head.
But Arnold saw his intention.
"I know what I am doing," he said viciously, "and now you've got it, you're going to keep it."
He followed up his words with his fist, and with one blow he laid Neville unconscious at his feet.
"When you wake up, old man, I don't think you will be Professor Neville," he muttered, and gathering the scientist's body up in his arms, he left the laboratory and made his way to Neville's bedroom. There he laid the old man upon the bed, and stood for a moment Looking down at him, then left, carefully locking the door after him.