Her blood was up.
Holding fast to the white flimsy thing, she sprang out of bed, ran
to the window which was open, slipped the screen, and flung it out;
but a sudden gust of wind, though the night was calm, arose and it
floated back in her face. She brushed it aside like a cobweb and
she clutched at it. She was actually furious. It eluded her
clutching fingers. Then she did not see it at all. She examined
the floor, she lighted her lamp again and searched, but there was
no sign of it.
Mrs. Simmons was then in such a rage that all terror had
disappeared for the time. She did not know with what she was
angry, but she had a sense of some mocking presence which was
silently proving too strong against her weakness, and she was
aroused to the utmost power of resistance. To be baffled like this
and resisted by something which was as nothing to her straining
senses filled her with intensest resentment.
Finally she got back into bed again; she did not go to sleep. She
felt strangely drowsy, but she fought against it. She was wide
awake, staring at the moonlight, when she suddenly felt the soft
white strings of the thing tighten around her throat and realized
that her enemy was again upon her.
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