CHAPTER V

A PRISONER OF MORPHIA

It was mid-forenoon of the following day when Ethel awoke from the
profound sleep superinduced by the drug. It was with a vast astonishment
that her startled eyes took in the surroundings of the stateroom. There
was a blank wall straight opposite her widely gazing eyes, where should
have stood a dressing table of Circassian walnut, topped by the long
oval mirror always ready to show her the reflected loveliness of her
face. And there should have been also lying exposed on the polished
surface of the table an orderly and beautiful array of those things that
make for a woman's beauty--the creams that cleanse a skin too delicate
for the harsh water poured from city mains; in a gold-topped bottle a
lotion for the hair, delicate and effective; in dainty phials essences
of perfume, subtle, yet curiously pervasive, with the fragrance of
joyous springtime. Indeed, a medley of the arts evolved through the ages
for the perfecting of that beauty, which, after all, is God-given--a
thing not to be attained by the processes of even the most skilled
beauty-doctors....

But Ethel possessed the thing itself. To her the accessories were but
absurdities--unnecessary and wanton, means whereby to emphasize a
natural loveliness.

There should have been a glimmer of pure white light from the back of a
hair brush, lying on the dressing table. Ethel had loved the purity of
that ivory surface. She had loved it so much that she refused to have it
broken by the superimposition upon it of initials wrought cleverly in
silver or gold or platinum. That brush meant so much to her! Night by
night, she toiled with it. After she had undone the masses of her
bronze-gold hair, she worked over them, with a sybaritical, meticulous
care.

She was used to sitting in negligee and having her maid brush the
strands. That brushing made the hair resplendent.... Now, Ethel
looked--there was no dressing table--no mirror--nothing, of the sort
that she was accustomed to see when she awoke in the morning.

She thought again of her own bedroom at home. She was minded to take her
bath, which must be drawn and waiting.... And then, suddenly, that blank
wall there before her eyes hammered upon her consciousness.

She was stricken with a curious sense of horror in this instant of
realization that she was in some unknown place--absolutely apart from
the dear, familiar things of home.

For a few horrid instants that shock of a v