Weakness overpowered her and she threw herself on the pile of cushions in the window and buried her face in her hands, as if by blinding herself to the imminent facts of her surroundings she could free her spirit of the terrors which were overtaking it. As in her dream, her faculties were elusive, thoughts and half-thoughts conflicting and interchangeable. The rush and the roar of the hurrying motor car, the kaleidoscope of the maddened crowd, the shots, the sunlight and then the spangled darkness with the sound of voices. She started upright in her cushions, her face pallid and drawn, her thoughts now focusing with sudden definiteness. The voices! They were no dream--no more a dream than the other horrors that encompassed her. She tried to remember what they had said. "Ten thousand _kroner_--the goose that lays the golden egg----" What did the phrases mean? Another--"To be kept in seclusion, of course, but you will accede to all her wishes." The meaning of the voices became clearer, at every moment. "Should she care to write, you will send a message!" Marishka put her hand to her lips as though to stifle a cry, and then sank back with a gasp of comprehension. Goritz! He had expected her to send a message, and had prepared for its delivery. But why? How could he have known!... Slowly the meaning of it all came to her. His certainty and insistence as to Hugh Renwick's pursuit--the belief that Renwick would go at once to the Hotel Europa! The power of suggestion! And she had followed it blindly--unawares, leading Hugh Renwick into this deadly trap which Goritz had laid. She read the plan now in all its insidious perfection. There was something malign--hypnotic--in an influence which could so easily compel compliance. And Hugh? She had written him to come here--to the door in the court below, where men would be waiting--perhaps to take his life. It was too horrible!
Nature mercifully intervened. The strain of long days and nights of anguish had reached the limit of her endurance, and her nerves, too, long under tension, suddenly rebelled. She sank helplessly upon the floor, sobs racking her body from head to foot. She did not know how long she lay there, but when she raised her head it was already growing dark in the room, like the shadows that were stealing about her heart. Whichever way she turned, groping mentally for a thought which would lead her toward a light, disorder reigned, danger threatened. If there was a man at the foot of the stairs to prevent her escape, there would be others beneath the windows and at the door into the garden.