She did stand up to him, although it
needed all her strength, moral and physical. He was attacking her
soul and she was saving his . . .
He said no more about his going away. He accepted it as a fact that
she was there and that she would stay there. He had changed his
position and was fighting her on another ground.
Maggie had once, years before, read in a magazine, a story about a
traveller and a deserted house. This traveller, lost, as are all
travellers in stories, in a forest, benighted and hungry, saw the
lights of a house.
He goes forward and finds a magnificent mansion, blazing with light
in every window, but apparently deserted. He enters and finds room
after room prepared for guests. A fine meal is laid ready and he
enjoys it. He discovers the softest of beds and soon is fast asleep;
but when he is safely snoring back creep all the guests out of the
forest, hideous and evil, warped and deformed, maimed and rotten
with disease. They had left the house, that he might be lured in it,
knowing that he would never come whilst they were there. And so they
creep into all the rooms, flinging their horrible shadows upon the
gleaming walls, and gradually they steal about the bed .
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