CHAPTER 40Laura woke up in the dark. It was very dark indeed, because though one of the windows was open the black-out curtain hung across it and no light came through. She did not know what had waked her, but she came up out of sleep with a sense of fear pressing hard upon her and only just escaped. Fear—blind, formless, dreadfully unknown—it hammered at her brain, her heart, her pulses. There was no other sound in the room.
She sat up stiffly in the bed, listening, trying to steady herself, and moment by moment the dark tide ebbed away, leaving her Laura Fane again, in control, instead of a hunted thing without a name driven by a nameless fear.
The relief was very great, but her throat was dry and her body shaken. She got out of bed, felt her way to the wash-stand, and poured a glass o
