She had taken a big dose, so as to secure immobility.

The question now was, would she recover at all from it?
Hour after hour we waited and watched; and not a sign of movement! Only the same deep, slow, hampered breathing, the same feeble, jerky pulse, the same deathly pallor on the dark cheeks, the same corpse-like rigidity of limb and muscle.
At last our patient stirred faintly, as in a dream; her breath faltered.
We bent over her.

Was it death, or was she beginning to recover?
Very slowly, a faint trace of colour came back to her cheeks.

Her heavy eyes half opened.

They stared first with a white stare.