“I’m—not—going—to faint!” Molly muttered, but her lips were purple already, and her eyes dim, while a horrible sinking feeling stole over her form.
She struggled desperately against it, and Louise Barry laughed, mockingly.
“You will be unconscious in five minutes,” she said. “I see it stealing over you, now. You are worn out by all that you have suffered, and you can not bear up against your terror of me!”
CHAPTER XXV.
Molly knew that her enemy’s words were true. Already a subtle weakness was stealing over her, and she saw Louise’s handsome, mocking, cruel face dimly, as through a blood-red mist. She felt as if a deadly vampire were feasting on her life-blood and struggled wildly to cry out, to call assistance in her terrible need.
But her lips seemed parched and dry, her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth, feeling stiff and swollen and almost paralyzed. Life seemed swiftly ebbing, and her foe sat there watching her gloatingly. A moment of sharp, cruel, agonized struggling against the awful sensation, and Molly swooned as her enemy had predicted.
It was the hour of Louise’s triumph.
She ran into the dressing-room and quickly possessed herself of a long cloth cloak with a hood. Running back, she threw aside the bed-covers and flung the cloak around Molly’s form. Then she attempted to lift the girl in her strong arms and bear her away as she had threatened.
To her surprise she found that the burden was too heavy for her strength and dropped it back on the bed with a muttered exclamation of dismay.
“Why, I have lifted her up and shaken her a hundred times. What does this mean?” she exclaimed, and flung back the cloak from the silent form.