e man at the doorway below had frightened her. He had
been so uncompromising in his ugliness. The shock of her awakening had
been rudely unexpected, and had bewildered her with its brutal
significance. She was a prisoner in this Turkish house, in an obscure
quarter of a half Oriental town, and night was imminent, a night which
seemed to possess untold possibilities for evil. What was to happen? Why
had not Captain Goritz returned? Enemy though she now knew him to be,
even Goritz was a refuge in this perilous situation. And yet it seemed
certain that the man at the foot of the stairs was acting under his
orders or under the orders of another who was accountable to him.

Weakness overpowered her and she threw herself on the pile of cushions
in the window and buried her face in her hands, as if by blinding
herself to the imminent facts of her surroundings she could free her
spirit of the terrors which were overtaking it. As in her dream, her
faculties were elusive, thoughts and half-thoughts conflicting and
interchangeable. The rush and the roar of the hurrying motor car, the
kaleidoscope of the maddened crowd, the shots, the sunlight and then the
spangled darkness with the sound of voices. She started upright in her
cushions, her face pallid and drawn, her thoughts now focusing with
sudden definiteness. The voices! They were no dream--no more a dream
than the other horrors that encompassed her. She tried to remember what
they had said. "Ten thousand _kroner_--the goose that lays the golden
egg----" What did the phrases mean? Another--"To be kept in seclusion,
of course, but you will accede to all her wishes." The meaning of the
voices became clearer, at every moment. "Should she care to write, you
will send a message!" Marishka put her hand to her lips as though to
stifle a cry, and then sank back with a gasp of comprehension. Goritz!
He had expected her to send a message, and had prepared for its
delivery. But why? How could he have known!... Slowly the meaning of it
all came to her. His certainty and insistence as to Hugh Renwick's
pursuit--the belief that Renwick would go at once to the Hotel Europa!
The power of suggestion! And she had followed it blindly--unawares,
leading Hugh Renwick into this deadly trap which Goritz had laid. She
read the plan now in all its insidious perfection. There was something
malign--hypnotic--in an influence which could so easily compel
compliance. And Hugh? She had written him to come her