childhood. That, and the memory of her mother, kneeling on the big
bearskin rug and saying in a hard, dry voice: "Never give your heart to
any man. Take everything. But do not give--anything--in return."



CHAPTER II

OUT OF THE FOG

A sudden warning shout, the transient glare of fog-blurred headlights,
then a crash and a staggering blow on the car's near side which sent
it reeling like a drunken thing, bonnet foremost, straight into a
motor-omnibus.

Magda felt herself pitched violently forward off the seat, striking her
head as she fell, and while the car yet rocked with the force of its
collision with the motor-bus another vehicle drove blindly into it
from the rear. It lurched sickeningly and jammed at a precarious angle,
canted up on two wheels.

Shouts and cries, the frenzied hooting of horns, the grinding of brakes
and clash of splintered glass combined into a pandemonium of terrifying
hubbub.

Magda, half-dazed with shock, crouched on the floor of the car where she
had been flung. She could see the lights appearing and disappearing in
the fog like baleful eyes opening and shutting spasmodically. A tumult
of hoarse cries, cursing and bellowing instructions, crossed by the thin
scream of women's cries, battered against her ears.