The cold hand against Pat was still; she felt it rigid and stiff on
her flesh. She lay passive with closed eyes; having voiced her final
appeal, she was through. The words torn from her misery represented
the final iota of spirit remaining to her; and her bruised body and
battered mind had nothing further to give.
The hand quivered and withdrew. For a moment more she lay motionless
with her arms clutched about her, then she opened her eyes, gazing
dully, hopelessly at the demon standing over her. He was watching her
with a curious abstracted frown; as she stirred, the scowl intensified,
and he drew back a step.
His face contorted suddenly in a spasm of some unguessable emotion.
His fists clenched; a low unintelligible mutter broke from his lips.
"Strange!" she heard him say, and after a moment, "I'm still master
here!"
He _was_ master; in a moment the emotion vanished, and he was again
standing over her, his face the same impassive demoniac mask. She
watched him in a dull stupor of despair that was too deep for even a
whimper of pain as he wrenched at the elastic about her waist, and it
cut into her flesh and parted. He tore the garment away, and the red
eyes bored down with a wild elation in their depths.
"Mine!" the being muttered, a new hoarseness in his voice. "Are you
mine?"
Pat made no answer; his voice croaked in more insistent tones. "Are you
mine?"
She could not reply. She felt his fingers bite into the flesh of her
shoulder. She was shaken roughly, violently, and the question came
again, fiercely. The eyes flamed in command, and she felt through
her languor and weakness, the stirring of that strange and unholy
fascination that he held over her.
"Answer!" he croaked. "Are you mine?"
The torture of his searing grip on her shoulder wrung an answer from
her.
"Yes," she murmured faintly. "Yours."
She closed her eyes again in helpless resignation. She felt the
hand withdrawn, and she lay passive, waiting, on the verge of
unconsciousness, numb, spirit-broken, and beaten.
Nothing happened. After a long interval she opened her eyes, and saw
the other standing again with clenched fists and contorted countenance.
His features were writhing in the intensity of his struggle; a strange
low snarl came from his lips. He backed away from her, step by step; he
leaned against the book-shelves, and beads of perspiration formed on
his scowling face.
He was no longer master! She saw the change; imperceptibly the evil
vanished from his features, and suddenly they were no longer his,
but the weary, horror-stricken visage of her Nick! The red eyes were
no longer Satanic, but only the blood-shot, troubled, gentle eyes of
her sweetheart, and the lips had lost their grimness, and gasped and
quivered and trembled. He reeled against the wall, staggered to the
chair at the table, and sank weakly into it.
Pat was far too exhausted, far too dazed, to feel anything but the
faintest sensation of relief. She realized only dimly that tears were
welling from her eyes, and that sharp sobs were shaking her. She was
for the moment unable to stir, and it was not long until the being at
the table turned stricken eyes on her that she moved. Then she drew
her knees up before her, as if to hide her body behind their slim,
chiffon-clad grace.
Nick rose from the table, approaching her with weary, hesitant tread.
He seized a cover of some sort that was folded over the foot of the
couch, shook it out and cast it over her. She clutched it about her
body, sat erect and leaned back against the wall in utter exhaustion.
Many minutes passed with no word from either of the occupants of the
unholy chamber. It was Nick who broke the long silence.
"Pat," he murmured in low tones. "Pat--Dear. Are you--all right?"
She stared at him dazedly without answer.
"Honey!" he said. "Honey! Tell me you're all right!"
"All right?" she repeated uncomprehendingly. "Yes. I guess I'm all
right."
"Then go, Pat! Get away from here before he--before anything happens!
Put your clothes on and hurry away!"
"I can't!" she said, faintly. "I--can't!"
"You must, Honey!"
"I'm just--not able to. I will soon, Nick--honest. When I--when I get
my breath back."
"Pat!" There was anguish in the cry. "Oh, God--Pat! We mustn't ever be
together again--not ever!"
"No," she said. A bit of sanity was returning to her; comprehension of
her position sent a shudder through her. "No, we mustn't."
"I couldn't bear another night like this--watching! I'd go mad!"
"Oh!" she choked, tears starting. "If you hadn't come back, Nick!"
"I conquered him," he said. "I don't think I could do it again. It was
your call that gave me the strength, Pat." He shook his head as if
bewildered. "He thought it was being in love with you that weakened me,
but in the end it was that which gave me the strength to subdue him."
"I'm scared!" said the girl suddenly. "Oh, Nick! I'm frightened!"
"You'd better go. You'd better dress and leave at once, Honey. Here."
He gathered her clothes from the floor, depositing them beside her on
the couch. "There are pins in the tray on the table, Pat. Fix yourself
up as well as you can, dear--and hurry out of here!"
He turned toward the door as if to leave, and a shock of terror shook
her.
"Nick!" she cried. "Don't go away! I'm more afraid when I can't see
you--afraid that _he_--" She broke off sobbing.
"All right, Honey. I'll turn my back."
She slipped out from under the blanket, found the pins, and repaired
her ruined costume. The frock was torn, crushed and bedraggled; she
pinned it together at the throat, though her trembling fingers made the
task difficult. She pulled it on and took a tentative step toward the
door.
"Nick!" she called as a wave of dizziness sent her swaying against the
wall.
"What's the matter, Honey?" He turned anxiously at her cry.
"I'm dizzy," she moaned. "My head aches, and--I'm scared!"
"Pat, darling! You can't go out alone like this--and," he added
miserably, "I can't take you!" He slipped his arm around her tenderly,
supporting her to the couch. "Honey, what'll we do?"
"I'll be--all right," she murmured. "I'll go in a moment." The
dizziness was leaving her; strength was returning.
"You must!" he said dolefully. "What a parting, Pat! Never to see you
again, and then having this to remember as farewell!"
"I know, Nick. You see, I love you too." She turned her dark, troubled
eyes on him. "Honey, kiss me good-bye! We'll have that to remember,
anyway!" Tears were again on her cheeks.
"Do I dare?" he asked despondently. "After the things these lips of
mine have said, and what these arms have done to you?"
"But you didn't, Nick! Could I blame you for--that _other_?"
"God! You're kind, Pat! Honey, if ever I win out in this battle, if
ever I know I'm the final victor, I'll--No," he said his tones dropping
abruptly. "I'll never come back to you, Pat. It's far too dangerous,
and--can I ever be certain? Can I?"
"I don't know, Nick. Can you?"
"I can't be, Pat! I'll never be sure that _he_ isn't just dormant, as
he was before, waiting for my weakness to betray me! I'll never be
certain, Honey! It _has_ to be good-bye!"
"Then kiss me!"
She clung to him; the room that had been so recently a chamber of
horrors was transformed. As she held him, as her lips were pressed to
his, she thought suddenly of the words of the demon, that Heaven and
Hell were always the same place. They had taken on a new meaning, those
words; she drew away from Nick and turned her tear-bright eyes tenderly
on his.
"Honey," she murmured, "I don't want you to leave me. I don't want you
to go!"
"Nor do I want to, Pat! But I must."
"You mustn't! You're to stay, and we'll fight it out together--be
married, or any way that permits us to fight it through together."
"Pat! Do you think I'd consent to that?"
"Nick," she said. "Nick darling--It's worth it to me! I'm realizing it
now; I thought it wasn't--but it is! I can't lose you, Nick--anything,
even that _other_, is better than losing you."
"You're sweet, Pat! You know I'd trade my very soul for that, but--No.
I can't do it! And don't Honey, torture me by suggesting it again."
"But I will, Nick!" She was speaking softly, earnestly. "You're worth
anything to me! If _he_ should kill me, you'd still be worth it!" She
gazed tenderly at him. "I'd want to die anyway without you!"
"No more than I without you," he muttered brokenly. "But I won't do it,
Pat! I won't do that to you!"
"I love you, Nick!" she said in a low voice. "I don't want to live
without you. Do you understand me, dear? I don't want to live without
you!"
He stared at her somberly. "I've thought of that too," he said.
"Pat--if I only believed that we'd be together after, together
_anywhere_, I'd say yes. If only I believed there _were_ an afterwards!"
"Doesn't he prove that by his very existence?"
"Your Doctor would deny that."
"Doctor Carl never saw _him_, Nick. And anyway, even oblivion together
would be better than being separated, and far better than this!"
He gazed at her silently. She spoke again. "That doesn't frighten me,
Nick. It's only losing you that frightens me, especially the fear of
losing you to _him_."
He continued his silent gaze. Suddenly he drew her close to him, held
her in a tight, tender embrace.
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