winds of young romance into a gloomy zone of brooding torpor,
whose calm was false, surcharged with unseizable disquiet, its atmosphere
electrical with formless apprehensions, its sad twilight shot with lurid
gleams no sooner glimpsed than gone.

In this state Sofia's sensibilities were less benumbed than bound in a
palsy of suspense not wholly destitute of dread; beneath the lethargic
shallows of consciousness lay soundless deeps troubled by sinister
premonitions....

Now, retracing stage by stage the record of the day, Sofia became aware
that its most poignant moment for her was actually the present, with its
keen wonder that she had contrived to survive such exquisite tedium.

She perceived that she had moved throughout like an automaton swayed by a
will outside its own; functioning rather than living; performing appointed
business, executing prescribed gestures, uttering foreordained
observations, and making dictated responses, all without suggestion of
spontaneity, and all without meaning other than as means to bridge an empty
space of waiting.

Waiting for what?

Sofia could not guess....

She went to bed presently, hoping only to find surcease of boredom; and her
head no sooner touched the pillow than oblivion closed down upon her
faculties like a dense, dark cloud.

Discreet and well-instructed, Chou Nu turned the night-light down to a
glimmer, placed on and under a chair adjacent to the bed a robe of cashmere
that wouldn't rustle, and slippers of fine felt with soles of soft leather,
in which footfalls must be inaudible--and glided gently from the room.

For sixty minutes its deep hush was unbroken; the even respiration of the
girl made no sound, she rested without tossing, without moving a finger.

Then, sleep having held her for precisely one hour by the clock, Sofia
opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and at once sat up on the side of
the bed.

The memory of that hour was not to leave the girl while life was in her;
nor was the question it raised ever to be answered in a fashion
satisfactory to her intelligence. When later she heard it stated with
authority, by men reputed to be versed in psychic knowledge, that a subject
in hypnosis cannot be willed to act contrary to the instincts of his or her
better nature, she held her peace, but wondered. Was Victor right, then,
and the crime he had willed her to commit in final analysis not repugnant
to her instincts? Or was it some secret faculty of th