"I won't be bullied!" Pat told herself, examining her features in the
mirror. The two day interval had faded the discoloration of her cheek
to negligible proportions, and all that remained as evidence of the
violence of Saturday night was the diminishing mark on her chin. Of
course, her knees--but they were covered; most of the time, at least.
She gave herself a final inspection, and somewhere below a clock boomed.
"Eight o'clock," she remarked to her image; "Time to be leaving, and it
serves Dr. Carl right for his high-handed actions last night. I won't
be bullied by anybody." She checked herself as her mind had almost
added, "Except Nick." True or not, she didn't relish the thought; the
recent recollections it roused were too disturbing.
She tossed a stray wisp of black hair from her forehead and turned to
the door. She heard her mother's voice as she descended the stairs.
"Are you going out, Patricia? Do you think it wise?"
"I am perfectly all right. I want to go for a walk."
"I know, Dear; it was largely your appearance I meant." She surveyed
the girl with a critical eye. "Nice enough, except for that little spot
on your chin, and will you never learn to keep your hair away from that
side of your forehead? One can never do a bob right; why don't you let
it grow out like the other girls?"
"Makes me individual," replied Pat, moving toward the outer door. "I
won't be late at all," she added.
On the porch she cast a cautious glance at Dr. Horker's windows, but
his great figure was nowhere evident. Only a light burning in the
library evinced his presence. She gave a sigh of relief, and tiptoed
down the steps to the sidewalk, and moved hastily away from the range
of his watchful eyes.
No sooner had she sighted the park than doubts began to torment her.
Suppose this were some trick of Nicholas Devine's, to trap her into
some such situation as that of Saturday night. Even suppose that she
found him the sweet personality that she had loved, might that also
be a trick? Mightn't he be trusting to his ability to win her over, to
the charm she had confessed to him that he held for her? Couldn't he
be putting his faith in his own amorous skill, planning some specious
explanation to win her forgiveness only to use her once more as the
material for some horrible experiment? And if he were, would she be
able to prevent herself from yielding?
"Forewarned is fore-armed," she told herself. "I'll not put up such a
feeble resistance this time, knowing what I now know. And it's only
fair of me to listen to his explanation, if he really has one."
She was reassured by the sight of the crowded park; groups strolled
along the walks, and an endless procession of car-headlights marked the
course of the roadway. Nothing could happen in such an environment;
they'd be fortunate even to have an opportunity for confidential
talk. She waited for the traffic lights, straining her eyes to locate
Nicholas Devine; at the click of the signal she darted across the
street.
She moved toward the lake; here was the spot, she was sure. She glanced
about with eagerness unexpected even to herself, peering through the
shadow-shot dusk. He wasn't there, she concluded, with a curious sense
of disappointment; her failure to appear last night had disheartened
him; he had abandoned his attempt.
Then she saw him. He sat on a bench isolated from the rest in a
treeless area overlooking the lake. She saw his disconsolate figure,
his chin on his hand, staring moodily over the waters. A tremor ran
through her, she halted deliberately, waiting until every trace of
emotion had vanished, then she advanced, standing coolly beside him.
For a moment he was unaware of her presence; he sat maintaining his
dejected attitude without glancing at her. Suddenly some slight
movement, the flutter of her skirt, drew his attention; he turned
sharply, gazing directly into her face.
"Pat!" He sprang to his feet. "Pat! is it you--truly you? Or are you
one of these visions that have been plaguing me for hours?"
"I'm real," she said, returning his gaze with a studied coolness in her
face. She made no other move; her cold composure disconcerted him, and
he winced, flushed, and moved nervously aside as she seated herself. He
dropped beside her; he made no attempt to touch her, but sat watching
her in silence for so long a time that she felt her composure ebbing.
There was a hungry, defeated look about him; there was a wistfulness,
a frustration, in his eyes that seemed about to tug tears from her own
eyes. Abruptly she dropped her gaze from his face.
"Well?" she said finally in a small voice, and as he made no reply,
"I'm here."
"Are you really, Pat? Are you truly here?" he murmured, still watching
her avidly. "I--I still don't believe it. I waited here for hours and
hours last night, and I'd given up hope for tonight, or any night. But
I would have come again and again."
She started as he bent suddenly toward her, but he was merely examining
her face. She saw the gleam of horror in his expression as his eyes
surveyed the faintly visible bruise on her cheek, the red mark on her
chin.
"Oh my God, Pat!" His words were barely audible. "Oh my God!" he
repeated, drawing away from her and resuming the attitude of desolation
in which her arrival had found him. "I've hoped it wasn't true!"
"What wasn't?" She was keeping her voice carefully casual; this
miserable contrition of Nick's was tugging at her rather too powerfully
for complete safety.
"What I remembered. What I saw just now."
"You hoped it wasn't true?" she queried in surprise. "But you did it."
"_I_ did it, Pat? Do you think _I_ could have done it?"
"But you did!" Her voice had taken on a chill inflection; the memory of
those indignities came to steel her against him.
"Pat, do you think I could assault your daintiness, or maltreat the
beauty I worship? Didn't anything occur to you? Didn't anything seem
queer about--about that ghastly evening?"
"Queer!" she echoed. "That's certainly a mild word to use, isn't it?"
"But I mean--hadn't you any idea of what had happened? Didn't you
think anything of it except that I had suddenly gone mad? Or that I'd
grown to hate you?"
"What was I to think?" she countered, trying to control the tremor that
had crept into her voice.
"But did you think that?"
"No," the girl confessed after a pause. "At first, when you started
with that drink, I thought you were looking for material for your work.
That's what you said--an experiment. Didn't you?"
"I guess so," he groaned.
"But after that, after I'd swallowed that horrible stuff, but before
everything went hazy, I--thought differently."
"But what, Pat? What did you think?"
"Why, then I realized that it wasn't you--not the real you. I could
feel the--well, the presence of the person I knew; this presence
that was tormenting me was another person, a terrible, cold, inhuman
stranger."
"Pat!" There was a note almost of relief in his voice. "Did you really
feel that?"
"Yes. Does it help matters, my sensing that? I can't see how."
His eyes, which had been fixed on hers, dropped suddenly. "No," he
muttered, all the relief gone out of his tones, "no, it doesn't help,
does it? Except that it's a meager consolation to me to know that you
felt it."
Pat struggled to suppress an impulse to reach out her hand, to stroke
his hair. She caught herself sharply; this was the very danger against
which she had warned herself--this was the very attitude she had
anticipated in Nicholas Devine, the lure which might bait a trap. Yet
he looked so forlorn, so wistful! It was an effort to forbear from
touching him; her fingers fairly ached to brush his cheek.
"Only a fool walks twice into the same trap," she told herself. Aloud
she said, "You promised me an explanation. If you've any excuse, I'd
like to hear it." Her voice had resumed its coolness.
"I haven't any excuse," he responded gloomily, "and the explanation is
perhaps too bizarre, too fantastic for belief. _I_ don't believe it
entirely; I suppose _you_ couldn't believe it at all."
"You promised," she repeated. The carefully assumed composure of her
voice threatened to crack; this wistfulness of his was a powerful
weapon against her defense.
"Oh, I'll give you the explanation," he said miserably. "I just wanted
to warn you you'd not believe me." He gave her a despondent glance.
"Pat, as I love you I swear that what I tell you is the truth. Do you
think you can believe me?"
"Yes," she murmured. The tremor had reappeared in her voice despite her
efforts.
Nicholas Devine turned his eyes toward the lake and began to speak.
15