But how could she be entirely sure that he hadn't called at the office in the morning, that he hadn't stealthily found his way to Lathrup's office after pretending to leave, and....
She arose suddenly, determined to remain calm, to keep such thoughts from mushrooming out and growing to monstrous proportions in her mind.
Just nerves, she told herself firmly. No reason at all to think him a crafty dissembler, when his every word and gesture had borne the stamp of absolute sincerity. No one could be that perfect an actor. She had liked him ... she still liked him ... and she hoped that he would call at the office again, when the horror had become just a dim, receding memory—could it ever be quite that, she wondered—and he would ask her to lunch and she would look at his new drawings and all fear, all suspicion would be banished from her mind.
She crossed to the heavy plate-glass door, pulled inward and emerged into the street without a backward glance. She had a momentary qualm about not having ordered anything, even a cup of coffee. But she shrugged it off, telling herself that if the waitress and cashier were unhappy about it they could ... yes, go to hell.
Chapter IV
Ralph Gilmore could not escape from the nightmare. There was no escape anywhere, for his world had become star-crossed with dark patterns of betrayal and outrage that hid the light of the sun and turned the still wet, slippery pavement beneath his feet into a quagmire. He experienced a sinking sensation, a hollowness at the pit of his stomach which forced him to take refuge in his room and even there he could find no peace.
It was impossible to avoid remembering, impossible to keep the tormenting events of the past two weeks from screeching, roaring, clattering back into his mind like an onrushing subway train, its red lights ablaze. A jostling on the platform, a violent shove and he was lying directly in the path of the train, glued to the rails by blind terror. Only—the rush of returning memories was worse than that, much worse. If it had been merely physical, if it had been merely something that could crush and destroy him he might have welcomed it. But there was no escape from a horror of the mind, unless drink or drugs could be used as an anodyne and something deep in his nature prevented him from taking that dangerous road to forgetfulness.
Sleep was out of the question. When he threw himself down and shut his eyes the torment had become worse, the memory pictures more unendurable.
Unendurable, torturing now—like salt on raw wounds—but there had been moments when some of them had seemed very precious, worth dying for, worth ... say it, bring it out into the open ... worth killing for. But wasn't that an insane way of looking at it? The scales never came down completely, or balanced completely on one side or the other. There had to be some joy in the most agonizing of memories. Otherwise a man would never go on, would never wade deeper into a dark morass of guilt and self-torment. Knowing himself to be betrayed, but still going on, putting himself beyond the pale. There had to be a glittering prize shining in the darkness, beckoning, offering moments of respite—offering far more than that. Wild joy, forbidden pleasures, the mind-beguiling beauty of Medusa before her snake-wreathed face turned her victims to stone.