CHAPTER IV

DESOLATION


Out of a deep abyss of darkness in which she seemed to have wandered
ceaselessly and comfortlessly for many days, Muriel Roscoe came
haltingly back to the surface of things. She was very weak, so weak
that to open her eyes was an exertion requiring all her resolution,
and to keep them open during those first hours of returning life a
physical impossibility. She knew that she was not alone, for gentle
hands ministered to her, and she was constantly aware of some one who
watched her tirelessly, with never-failing attention. But she felt
not the smallest interest regarding this faithful companion, being
too weary to care whether she lived or fell away for ever down those
unending steeps up which some unseen influence seemed magnetically to
draw her.

It was a stage of returning consciousness that seemed to last even
longer than the period of her wandering, but this also began to pass
at length. The light grew stronger all about her, the mists rolled
slowly away from her clogged brain, leaving only a drowsing languor
that was infinitely restful to her tired senses.

And then while she lay half-dreaming and wholly content, a remorseless
hand began to bathe her face and head with ice-cold water. She awoke