. .
Maggie forgot the end of the story. The traveller escaped, or
perhaps he did not. Perhaps he was strangled. But that moment of his
awakening, when his startled eyes first stared upon those horrible
faces, those deformed bodies, those evil smiles! What could one do,
one naked and defenceless against so many?
Maggie thought of this story during Martin's convalescence. She
seemed to see the evil guests, crowding back, one after the other
into his soul, and as they came back they peeped out at her, smiling
from the lighted windows. She saw that his plan was to thrust before
her the very worst of himself. He said: "Well, I've tried to get rid
of her and she won't go. That's her own affair, but if she stays, at
least she shall see me as I am. No false sentimental picture. I'll
cure her."
It was the oldest trick in the world, but to Maggie it was new
enough. At first she was terrified. In spite of her early experience
with her father, when she had learnt what wickedness could be, she
was a child in all knowledge of the world. Above all she knew very
little about her own sex and its relation with men.
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