Suddenly the idea of insanity crossed her mind.  She sat down abruptly.  The room began to sway; her head ached as if the blows of a hammer were descending on her brow.  She clutched the iron foottrail to keep from being tossed from the heaving, rocking bed.  The ceiling seemed to lower and crush her.  Then an enormous hand and arm entered at the window and turned off the sun which was burning at the end of a gas jet in the room.  All was dark.

She recovered consciousness slowly, aware of immeasurable weakness.  She lay very still, lying, as it were, within her body.  She felt that should she require that weary body to do anything it must refuse.  Through her half-closed lids she saw the woman who had first aroused her enter the room with a tray.

“Dear, dear!” she heard her say.  “You must cover up.  Don’t lie on the outside of the bed; get under the covers.”

To Mrs. Marteen’s intense inner surprise, the weary body obeyed, crawling feebly beneath the sheets.  She had not realized that she had lain where she had fainted, at the foot of the bed.

“Now take some tea,” the controlling will ordered; “you’ll feel better; and a bit of dry toast.  Sick headaches are awful, I know, and tea’s the best thing.”

Once more the body obeyed, and sat up and drank the steaming cup to the great comfort of the inner being.  So reviving was its influence that Mrs. Marteen decided to try her own will and speak.

“Thank you—­” her lips spoke, and she felt elated.  She made another effort.  “Thank you very much; it’s most refreshing.  No—­no toast now—­but is there some more tea?”

She drank it greedily and lay back upon the pillows with a sigh.  Images were forming; memories were coming back now—­scraps of things.  There was a young girl whom she loved dearly.  She had brown hair, very blue eyes and a delicious profile.  She was tall and slender.  She wore a blue serge suit.  Her name—­was—­was Dorothy.  She spread her palms upon the sheet and felt it cool and refreshing.

“I’m afraid I’ve had a fever,” she said slowly.  “I think I have it still.  I—­I have such nightmares when I sleep—­such nightmares.”  She shuddered.

“Well,” said the landlady cheerfully, “you’ll feel better now.  Take it from me, tea’s the thing.”  She gathered up the napkin, cup and saucer and placed them on the tray.  “Well, I’ll let you be quiet, and I’ll drop in again about five.”

Now another memory came, a conscious thought connection.  She remembered that Mrs. Bell had told her of her faithful landlady, Mrs. Mellen, with whom she always stopped when she came North; she remembered calling there many times for Mary, her smart motor waking the quiet, unpretentious street.  Now she remembered recalling the boarding house and seeking shelter there in her fear and pain.  Fear and pain—­why, what was it?  There was something cataclysmic, overpowering, that had happened.  What could it be?  Something was hanging over her head, some dreadful punishment.  Her struggle to clear the mists from her brain rendered her more wildly feverish, then stupefied her to heavy sleep.