Lefevre was left seriously discomposed, but at once he sent for the house-physician, summoned the Sister and the nurse, and set about his third attempt to revive his patient.  He got the bed turned north and south.  He carefully explained to the two women what was demanded of them, and applied them to their task; but, whatever the cause, the failure was completer than before:  there was not even a tremor of muscle in the unconscious lady, and the doctor was suffused with alarm and humiliation.  Failure!—­failure!—­failure!  Such a concatenation had never happened to him before!

But failure only nerves the brave and capable man to a supreme effort for success.  Still self-contained, and apparently unmoved, the doctor gave directions for some liquid nourishment to be artificially administered to his patient, said he would return after dinner, and went his way.  The society of friends or acquaintances was distasteful to him then; the thought even of seeing his own familiar dining-room and his familiar man in black, whose silent obsequiousness he felt would be a reproach, was disagreeable.  All his thought, all his attention, all his faculties were drawn tight to this acute point—­he must succeed; he must accomplish the task he had set himself:  life at that hour was worth living only for that purpose.  But how was success to be compelled?

He walked for a while about the streets, and then he went into a restaurant and ordered a modest dinner.  He broke and crumbled his bread with both hands, his mind still intent on that one engrossing, acute point.  While thus he sat he heard a voice, as in a dream, say, “The very doctor you read about.  That’s the second curious case he’s got in a month or so....  Oh yes—­very clever; he treats them, I understand, in the same sort of way as the famous Dr Charbon of Paris would....  I should say so; quite as good, if not better than Charbon.  I’d rather have an English doctor any day than a French....  His name’s in the paper—­Lefevre.”  Then the doctor woke to the fact that he was being talked about.  He perceived his admirers were sitting at a table a little behind him, and he judged from what had been said that his fresh case was already being made “copy” of in the evening papers.  The flattering comparison of himself with Dr Charbon had an oddly stimulating effect upon him, notwithstanding that it had been uttered by he knew not whom,—­a mere vox et praeterea nihil.  He disclaimed to himself the truth of the comparison, but all the same he was encouraged to bend his attention with his utmost force to the solution of his difficult problem—­what to do to rouse his patient?