But no! I strove to put such thoughts behind me. My brain was awhirl, nay, even aflame, for gradually there crept over me a strange, uncanny feeling of giddiness such as I had never before experienced, a faint, sinking feeling, as though the chair was giving way beneath me.
"I don't know why, but I'm feeling rather unwell," I remarked to my hostess. Surely it could not be due to my overwrought senses and my strained anxiety for Phrida's safety.
"Oh! Perhaps it's the heat of the room," the woman replied. "This place gets unpleasantly warm at night. You'll be better in a minute or two, no doubt. I'll run and get some smelling salts. It is really terribly close in here," and, rising quickly, she left me alone.
I remember that instantly she had disappeared a red mist gathered before my eyes, and with a fearful feeling of asphyxiation I struggled violently, and fell back exhausted into my chair, while my limbs grew suddenly icy cold, though my brow was burning.
To what could it be due?
I recollect striving to think, to recall facts, to reason within myself, but in vain. My thoughts were so confused that grim, weird shadows and grotesque forms arose within my imagination. Scenes, ludicrous and tragic, wildly fantastic and yet horrible, were conjured up in my disordered brain, and with them all, pains—excruciating pains, which shot through from the sockets of my eyes to the back of my skull, inflicting upon me tortures indescribable.
I set my teeth in determination not to lose consciousness beneath the strain, and my eyes were fixed upon the wall opposite. I remember now the exact pattern of the wallpaper, a design of pale blue trellis-work with crimson rambler roses.
I suppose I must have remained in that position, sunk into a heap in the chair, for fully five minutes, though to me it seemed hours when I suddenly became conscious of the presence of persons behind me.
I tried to move—to turn and look—but found that every muscle in my body had become paralysed. I could not lift a finger, neither would my lips articulate any sound other than a gurgle when I tried to cry out. And yet I remained in a state of consciousness, half blotted out by those weird, fantastic and dreamy shapes, due apparently to the effect of that wine upon my brain.
Had I been deliberately poisoned? The startling truth flashed across my mind just as I heard a low stealthy movement behind me.