Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/9

 steady breathing. There was nothing to be alarmed about. She was succumbing to nerves. She must have been dreaming.

And then two arms touched her. She made no resistance. It was good to be loved.

"I didn't know," she said, "that you were awake."

"Ssh!" said he.

It was rather fun, she thought, to be loved in the darkness. But somehow in the blackness love seemed different. Now Whitman was not so gentle, but then it was the second night and she was more experienced. Still, she wondered why there was no beauty this time in their interlude of rapture.

She longed for him to desist so that she could quietly sob herself to sleep. She longed to be back in her own house, in her own room where she could be alone.

Then her hands came in contact with the man's arms, great hairy arms almost like those of a gorilla. She emitted a shriek of terror. Those arms did not belong to Whitman. He had vanished and she was in the arms of a monster, a cruel, merciless monster. With super-human effort she pushed him from her. She sprang from the bed and groped about in the blackness. Heavy curtains had been drawn over the windows so not the faintest vestige of moonlight flickered into the room. As she cowered in a corner she felt as though the room was filled with hands, the hands of hairy monsters. Once she came in contact with groping fingers but she drew back and was able to evade them. Then at last she heard the door close and the sound of footsteps going down the stairs. She walked across the room, feeling about in the velvet black for the door. She found it but the key had been removed. There was no possibility of locking it. She wondered what had happened to Whitman. Perhaps something dreadful. She decided she would go in search of him. She did not pause even to throw a kimono about her shoulders. All she could think of was to get away from that vile room. But when she attempted to open the door she could not. It had been locked from the outside.

Now was she in a frightful predicament, a prisoner in that sinister house of whispers and endless footsteps. In her mind all