Now she felt too weary to think—too tired to examine the situation which so suddenly confronted her when Albert Smull flung his last insult in her shrinking face.
Troubles thickened about her; trouble was invading her very door; but she was too sleepy to consider the misfortunes that involved her—the menacing situation at the studio—the sordid problem in the next room.
Her little mantel-clock struck two o’clock before she finally summoned energy to rise and go to awaken her husband.
He seemed to be in a sort of coma. Only after she twitched his sleeve repeatedly did he unclose his dangerous eyes. And then he merely muttered fretfully that he was too weak to move and meant to sleep where he lay until morning.
“You can’t remain here all night,” she said. “I can’t permit that. Do you understand, Stuart?”
But he only turned over, muttering incoherencies, and buried his dishevelled head in his ragged arms.
Not knowing what to do, she went wearily back to her bed-room. Twice, trying to think what to do, she fell asleep in her chair. The second waking found her on her feet, blind with sleep, but with instinct leading her to lock and bolt her bed-room door.... That is the last she remembered for a while.
She awoke, lying diagonally across her bed, fully dressed, in the dull, rosy glow of her little night-lamp. Something was scraping and scratching at her door. She turned her head, saw the door-knob twisting very softly, now this way, now that.
She got up from the bed and went quickly to the door.