Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/883

Rh Of course, not a wink did she sleep, because she didn't know at what moment he mightn't try to get into her room! And all night, she just sat there, praying for morning to come, for she never knew what not to expect.

By the time it began to get morning, she was so absolutely exhausted that try as she could she couldn't keep her eyes open a moment longer, she was so worn out with the excitement. So she thought she would try to snatch a few moments' sleep, and lay down and dozed off.

No sooner did she fall asleep, when it seemed to her that some one was opening the door without any noise, and that some one was standing looking at her, and looking at her. "It's only a dream," she said to herself.

But it wasn't a dream. It was the dark man who was standing looking at her. He had gotten into her state room with a skeleton key!

She couldn't scream, try as she did. She couldn't get even a whisper out of her throat. She couldn't move. She was absolutely hypnotized.

All of a sudden, he bent over her, and held her down with his one hand. She knew that he was going to stick the poisoned needle into her, and that after that, it would be all over with her. She tried her best to get up, or scream, or beg for mercy. But she couldn't get a single sound out of her throat. It was as if she were nailed to her bed. And then all of a sudden everything became black in front of her eyes, and she fainted dead away.

Heaven knows what wouldn't have happened to Fräulein if at that moment something hadn't happened that prevented it. You know about the "Montreal Express" that went into the Hudson River? Well, the same thing happened to Fräulein's train, just at the moment when she fainted dead away. Of course, she didn't know anything about it, but the first thing she knew she was in a bed in the hospital with a doctor and a trained nurse next to her, and they told her the whole thing. It was really the most terrible thing, because people were killed right in their berths while they were sleeping. It was the strangest thing how Fräulein herself escaped, because the car right in front of hers went straight into the Hudson River, and the people in it were drowned to death. The man who wanted to poison Fräulein with the needle was killed,