She seized the strings, untied
them, twitched off the cap, ran with it to the table where her
scissors lay and furiously cut it into small bits. She cut and
tore, feeling an insane fury of gratification.
"There!" said she quite aloud. "I guess I sha'n't have any more
trouble with this old cap."
She tossed the bits of muslin into a basket and went back to bed.
Almost immediately she felt the soft strings tighten around her
throat. Then at last she yielded, vanquished. This new refutal of
all laws of reason by which she had learned, as it were, to spell
her theory of life, was too much for her equilibrium. She pulled
off the clinging strings feebly, drew the thing from her head, slid
weakly out of bed, caught up her wrapper and hastened out of the
room. She went noiselessly along the hall to her own old room: she
entered, got into her familiar bed, and lay there the rest of the
night shuddering and listening, and if she dozed, waking with a
start at the feeling of the pressure upon her throat to find that
it was not there, yet still to be unable to shake off entirely the
horror.
When daylight came she crept back to the southwest chamber and
hurriedly got some clothes in which to dress herself.
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