On her knees beside the bed, her arm about him, passionately shielding
him from the dark forces around him, her face often touching his as if
reassuring him, Ernestine spoke to Karl, quietly, tenderly, forcefully,
love's own intuition telling her how much to say, when to speak. By her
warm body which loved him, by her great spirit which claimed him, she
would hold him from the outgoing tide. Her voice could rouse him where
other stimulants failed; the only effort he made was the tightening of
his hand over hers, and sometimes he smiled a little as he felt her close
to him.
Two hours went by; the lines in Dr. Parkman's face were deepening. They
worked on unfalteringly--hypodermics, heat, rubbing, oxygen, all those
things with which man seeks to deceive himself, and for which the foe,
with the tolerance of power, is willing to wait. But their faces were
changing. The call of the outgoing tide, that tide over which human
determination has not learned to prevail, was coming close. They worked
on, for they were trained to work on, even through the sense of their own
futility.
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