So Margaret was left wondering and frightened.
Monica paced her room for hours. She was vainly endeavoring to think connectedly. She was trying desperately to fathom the meaning of the man Verdant's challenge. It was useless. All continuity of thought was gone. Her ideas, her thoughts just tumbled pell-mell through her harassed brain, eluded her grasp, and vanished in the darkness whence they had leaped.
"Ask your husband. Ask Mr. Alexander Hendrie where he is."
It was maddening; and fever coursed through her veins. Her head grew hot with her effort. It ached, as did her eyes. Things about her began to seem unreal. Even the familiar objects in the room seemed to belong to some long-past, almost forgotten period in her life. She pulled herself together, and even began to question herself. Where was she? Ah, yes, this was her husband's house——
"Ask your husband."
For a moment the fever left her cold. Then it was on her again. She must ask her husband!
A hundred times the words came back, but she could proceed no further. Instinctively she understood something of the ugliness lying beyond them.
The distraught woman endured this torture for hours. It seemed ages; and at times she believed she was struggling to keep her reason.
If her husband knew of Frank's whereabouts, then—but she dared go no further. Once she paused in her restless pacing and stood before the mirror on her dressing-table. She stared at it as though reading the man's words written there. Suddenly she became aware of her own reflection, which seemed to be mocking her. She fled precipitately and flung herself into a chair, burying her face in her hands.
But such a state of mind could not endure and sanity remain. It was the result of shock, and the worst of shocks must give way before the recuperative powers of healthy nature. So it was now.