She laughed in my face. “I snap my fingers at your evil powers and your God of Love. I don't believe in either of them. I'm not afraid of either of them. Evil powers! Ha! Let them come if they want to. Here! We'll drink defiance to the powers of evil. Come on, Pen!”
“Defiance to the powers of evil,” laughed my poor soul-sick Penelope, lifting her glass.
With a shudder I watched these two tragically led young women as they stood there, draped in white, and drank this sacrilegious toast; then, heavy-hearted, I came away.
It was nearly four o'clock when I reached my home and I was so exhausted by the emotions of the night that I lay down without undressing and almost immediately fell into a troubled sleep. Then, suddenly, I awoke with a start of alarm and a sense that a voice had called me. And, though my bedroom was dark, I distinctly saw a white vaporish form passing over me as if someone had blown a cloud of tobacco smoke in my face. Once before I had had this experience of a white form passing over me—it was when my mother died.
I got up quickly, knowing that this was a summons, and, as I put on my hat and cloak, I heard my control telling me that I must go to Penelope. I knelt down and prayed that I might not be too late. Then I hurried back to the hotel and got there at half-past five. It was still night.
A sleepy elevator girl took me up to Roberta's apartment and I found that the door opened at my touch. In another moment I was standing in the silent hall looking down a long passage that led to Penelope's bedroom. The bedroom door was ajar and a dim light from the chamber illumined the way before me.
Thus far I had acted swiftly, almost mechanically, knowing that I had only one thing to do, and I had been aware of no particular emotion except a natural anxiety; but now, the moment I entered this apartment and closed the door behind me, I was conscious of a freezing, paralyzing fear, a sensation as real as the touch of a hand or the sound of a bell. It was something that could not be resisted. I was bathed in an atmosphere of terror. I was afraid to a degree that made my breath stop, my heart stop....
The passage leading to Penelope's bedroom was not more than six yards long, but it seemed as if it took me an hour to traverse it. I could scarcely force my lagging steps, one by one, to carry me. And every hideous moment brought me the vision of Penelope lying on that curtained bed, her beautiful face distorted, her eager young life—crushed out of her. Oh God, how I prayed!
When at last I came into the bedroom I faced another struggle. There was absolute silence. No sound of breathing from the bed, although I saw a woman's form under the sheets. But not her face, which was hidden by the curtain. For a long time I stood beside that bed, rigid with fear, before I found courage to draw the curtain back. At last I drew it back and—there lay Penelope, sleeping peacefully, quite unharmed. I was stunned with relief, with amazement and—suddenly her eyes opened and she gave a wild but joyful cry and flung her arms around my neck, sobbing hysterically.
“Oh! Oh! My dear, dear Seraphine! You came to me. You forgave me. You did not abandon your poor Penelope.” She clung to me like a child in frantic, pitiful terror.