CHAPTER TWO
At Last She Didn't Care
Mildred stood in the middle of the room, directly under the electric light that filled the room with its bright rays. She could see the end of the key, as it turned in the lock, and, in that moment, a scheme entered her head, like a flash. Locating the direction of the door, and facing toward it, she reached up suddenly and switched off the light. Instantly the room was ingulfed in darkness. She hurried to the door, and stood just to one side. Presently the knob turned and the man entered. He stood on the threshold a moment, and she heard him say:
"Ah, the little girl is sleeping peacefully," and laughed. "That was a devil of a dose a-whiskey that girl gave her, though! Knocked her stiff! Darned if I don't believe she was handing the straight dope after all." He advanced now toward the middle of the room. Quick as a flash she stepped out, and, seeing he had left the key in the lock, she jerked the door closed, and, turning the key, which she allowed to remain, rushed to the end of the steps, and hurried down as fast as she could safely venture.
It was dark outside, and no one stood about the entrance. She struck the pavement, looked up and down a brief moment, and then hurried in a direction that led to whither she knew not, but to escape was her only thought. She hurried along for fully three blocks, and then turned in another direction, and then one block in another, and paused—feeling safe at last.
Up to this time, she was not conscious that her head was aching to a point that was almost splitting. She placed her hand upon her forehead, and only then was she aware that she had the paper she had picked from the dresser, closely clutched in her hand. The words she had seen there, made her at once forget her headache and all else.
She thought of something then. She looked at the watch on her wrist. "Yes, thank God, there is yet time." An hour later she came back to the place where she had stood, and continued in the direction she had been going, looking from right to left for a lodging house.
She stopped at several places where a sign over the front advertised rooms, but, at each one they wanted men only. She had no thought of going back to where she had been stopping the last week; and, besides, she knew not where she was, nor did she know the street or number where she had been stopping, therefore was confident she could not have found it, had she wished to return.