It rasped,
proved stubborn, but at last came home with a click. Then she turned to
the window. It was open about three inches at the bottom. She closed it
tight, and fastened it, then stood for a moment in the middle of the room
looking at both door and window.
She was conscious of a sense of suffocation. Never in her life had she
slept with door or window or tentflap entirely closed. Never before had
she been shut in all night behind closed doors and sealed windows. Now,
as the sense of imprisonment was felt, her body protested; her spirit
resented the funereal embrace of security. It panted for the freedom
which gives the challenge to danger and the courage to face it.
She went to the window and opened it slightly at the top, and then sought
her bed again; but even as she lay down, something whispered to her mind
that it was folly to lock the door and yet leave the window open, if it
was but an inch. With an exclamation of self-reproach, and a vague
indignation at something, she got up and closed the window once more.
Again she composed herself to sleep, lying now with her face turned to
the window and the door. She was still sure that she had been the victim
of a hallucination which, emerging from her sleep, had invaded the
borders of wakefulness, and then had reproduced itself in a waking
illusion--an imitation of its original existence.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221