Penelope.
I knelt down and prayed that I might not be too late. Then I hurried
back to the hotel and got there at half-past five. It was still night.

A sleepy elevator girl took me up to Roberta's apartment and I found
that the door opened at my touch. In another moment I was standing in
the silent hall looking down a long passage that led to Penelope's
bedroom. The bedroom door was ajar and a dim light from the chamber
illumined the way before me.

Thus far I had acted swiftly, almost mechanically, knowing that I had
only one thing to do, and I had been aware of no particular emotion
except a natural anxiety; but now, the moment I entered this apartment
and closed the door behind me, I was conscious of a freezing, paralyzing
fear, a sensation as real as the touch of a hand or the sound of a
bell. It was something that could not be resisted. I was bathed in an
atmosphere of terror. I was afraid to a degree that made my breath stop,
my heart stop....

The passage leading to Penelope's bedroom was not more than six yards
long, but it seemed as if it took me an hour to traverse it. I could
scarcely force my lagging steps, one by one, to carry me. And every
hideous moment brought me the vision of Penelope lying on that curtained
bed, her beautiful face distorted, her eager young life--crushed out of
her. Oh God, how I prayed!

When at last I came into the bedroom I faced another struggle. There was
absolute silence. No sound of breathing from the bed, although I saw a
woman's form under the sheets. But not her face, which was hidden by the
curtain. For a long time I stood beside that bed, rigid with fear,
before I found courage to draw the curtain back. At last I drew it back
and--there lay Penelope, sleeping peacefully, quite unharmed. I was
stunned with relief, with amazement and--suddenly her eyes opened and
she gave a wild but joyful cry and flung her arms around my neck,
sobbing hysterically.

"Oh! Oh! My dear, dear Seraphine! You came to me. You forgave me. You
did not abandon your poor Penelope." She clung to me like a child in
frantic, pitiful terror.

Then she told me that she too had gone through a frightful experience.
When Roberta had left her, about an hour before, to sleep in the
adjoining apartment, as they had arranged with Margaret G----, Penelope
had tried to compose herself on her pillow, but she had scarcely fallen
into a doze when she was awakened by the same sense of horrible fear
that had ov