It was not of the penalties that Lou
Chada must suffer for this infringement of Western codes, but of
the price that she must pay for her folly, of which Pat was
thinking.
There was a nauseating taste upon her palate. She remembered
having noticed it faintly while she was smoking the cigarette;
indeed, she had commented upon it at the time.
"The dirty yellow blackguard!" she said aloud, and clenched her
hands.
She merely echoed what many a man had said before her. She
wondered at herself, and in doing so but wondered at the mystery
of womanhood.
Clarity was returning. The room no longer swam around her. She
crossed in the direction of a garish curtain, which instinctively
she divined to mask a door. Dragging it aside, she tried the
handle, but the door was locked. A second door she found, and
this also proved to be locked.
There was one tall window, also covered by ornate draperies, but
it was shuttered, and the shutters had locks. Another small
window she discovered, glazed with amber glass, but set so high
in the wall as to be inaccessible.
Dread assailed her, and dropping on to one of the divans, she hid
her face in her hands.
"My God!" she whispered. "My God! Give me strength--give me
courage.
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