Then
Maison heard him, felt his presence, and realized his danger.
He turned, intending to escape down the other stairway. He was too
late.
Ben caught him midway between the bed and the door that opened to the
stairway, and his big hands went around the banker's neck, cutting
short his scream of terror and the incoherent mutterings which followed
it.
Peggy Nyland had been suffering mental torture for ages, it seemed to
her. Weird and grotesque thoughts had followed one another in rapid
succession through her brain. The thing had grown so vivid--the
horrible imaginings had seemed so real, that many times she had been on
the verge of screaming. Each time she tried to scream, however, she
found that her jaws were tightly set, her teeth clenched, and she could
get no sound through them.
Lately, though--it seemed that it had been for hours--she had felt a
gradual lessening of the tension. Within the last few hours she had
heard voices near her; had divined that persons were near her. But she
had not been certain.
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