COMPUTER SCIENCE AN OVERVIEW 12TH

EDITION BROOKSHEAR

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Chapter Five
ALGORITHMS
Chapter Summary

In this chapter we turn to an explicit study of algorithms—a topic that was introduced as the core of
computer science in Chapter 0. The chapter begins with a formal definition of an algorithm and a
discussion of the meaning of that definition. This leads to a discussion of algorithm creation (a creative
process that parallels the more generic task of problem solving) and algorithm representation (the
process of expressing an algorithm in preparation for, or during, programming). The chapter closes
with the subjects of algorithm efficiency (using big theta notation) and correctness.
The search for algorithm development techniques is presented as an ongoing activity—not a
settled issue. The chapter discusses some of the ideas proposed by researchers in the field of problem
solving and relates these ideas to the problem of algorithm discovery and representation.
This chapter also presents iterative structures by means of the sequential search and insertion sort
algorithms as well as recursive structures by means of the binary search algorithm. In each case,
emphasis is placed on the components involved in controlling the repetitive process.
For communication purposes, the chapter introduces a pseudocode that is closely aligned with
Python. This pseudocode is also used at times later in the text, although these later appearances are
rather intuitive in that they do not require previous, rigorous coverage of this chapter. So, if you’re
teaching a course for non-majors, you can treat the pseudocode lightly without creating problems in
future chapters.

25
Comments
1. You will find this text's approach to problem solving somewhat different from that of other texts.
The problem solving section in this chapter is intended to be a refreshingly honest discussion. It does
not try to convince students that they can become good problem solvers merely by learning a
particular problem solving technique. In particular, it does not preach top-down design via stepwise
refinement.
Students don't learn to solve problems by practicing explicit techniques in an isolated section of a
course. They learn to solve problems unconsciously over an extended period of time in which they
are required to do it. Thus, every chapter of the text is designed to develop the students' problem-
solving skills. (Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think we produce too much rhetoric about problem
solving and don’t require our students to do enough.)
3. The following is a problem that I have given students to work on. The point is not whether they
solve it but that they realize that solving a problem is a creative process that may not be achieved by
following a methodology. Actually, you could argue that there are many correct answers to this
problem, but I think you'll agree that the one given below is a good one.
Problem: Fill in the blank in the sequence
110, 20, 12, 11, 10, __, ...
Answer: 6. The pattern is
110 (base two) = 6, 20 (base three) = 6, 12 (base four) = 6
11 (base five) = 6, 10 (base six) = 6, so 6 (base seven) = 6
4. Here is a good problem for demonstrating bottom-up design and the use of abstraction in problem
solving. Imagine three railroad spurs each opening into a Y that connects to the other spurs. (It is
really three stacks, but we have not studied data structures yet.) Cars are on each spur and a
locomotive is in the “middle” of the track system. Show that the locomotive can rearrange the cars in
any order.
A first step is to show that the locomotive can move the car "on top" of any spur to the top of any
other spur. This is actually a two-step process since the locomotive must remain in the "middle" of
the track system. The next step is to show that any two cars on a spur can be interchanged. Then show
that any two cars in the system can be interchanged. Finally, show that any arrangement can be
obtained by a sequence of interchanging two cars at a time.
5. I've debated marking the introduction to recursion as an optional section, but the truth is that
recursion is a very important topic in computer science. I even include it when I teach "computer
literacy" to non-majors and have always found the class to respond well. (I show the class that solving
a problem recursively is like getting something for nothing—we always ask someone else to do the
hard work. The students like that.)
Thus, an important goal in this chapter is to begin developing the concept of recursion. I say "begin"
because experience has shown that students acquire an understanding of recursion over a period of
time. I like to devote a significant part of a class period to walking through an example of the binary
search, as done in the book. Each time another activation of the algorithm is called, I mark my place
in the current copy of the algorithm, move to a new location on the chalkboard, draw another copy,
copy the pertinent portion of the list next to it, and then proceed with execution. (Some form of
overhead projection saves time, but working on a chalkboard gives students time to think.) Each time
an activation terminates, I transfer its list back into the larger list in the previous activation, erase the
terminating activation, and then proceed in the previous one. Such a careful presentation pays
numerous dividends. Not only does it clearly present the recursive process, but it also sets the stage
for later discussions regarding stacking activation environments, issues of global versus local
variables, and parameter passing.
I also like to walk through some short examples such as

26
 def PrintValues(Input):
if (Input != 0):
print(Input)
PrintValues(Input – 1)
in which I point out the difference in the output obtained by reversing the statements in the then
clause.
6. Here are some additional problems you may want to give your students. Each has the characteristic
that one can see a solution fairly quickly, but then one must wrestle with the problem of organizing
and expressing the solution.
a. Design an algorithm for solving the traveling salesman problem. (Given a network of roads, cities,
and mileages, find the shortest route that leads through each city at least once.)
b. Design an algorithm for converting a string of 1s into a string of 0s under the following constraints.
The right-most bit can always be complemented. Any other bit can be complemented if and only if
the bit to its immediate right is a 1 and all other bits to its right (if there are any) are 0.
c. Design an algorithm for testing a tic-tac-toe board to see if there has been a winner.
d. Design an algorithm for finding a path through a maze.
7. I like to use the problem "Design an algorithm for predicting the sum of the top and bottom faces
of four dice." to emphasize the distinction between algorithm discovery and algorithm representation.
In this case it’s the discovery step that may be tough. (Opposing faces on a die always add to seven.
Thus, the opposing faces on four dice must add to 28. Once this is discovered, the underlying
algorithm can be expressed as the single statement "print the value 28").
8. A good exercise for "experienced" programmers who think loop control is trivial is to design an
iterative algorithm for printing all possible permutations of a list of letters. (This is also a good
example of how the use of recursion can simplify matters.)

Answers to Chapter Review Problems

1. A sequence of steps that defines a nonterminating process would do.

2. An instruction such as "Drive to the grocery store." may be ambiguous if there are several grocery
stores around, but the underlying algorithm would not be ambiguous. The problem would be in the
representation, not the algorithm.
3. The use of primitives establishes a well-defined terminology in which algorithms can be expressed.
4. Students will come up with a variety of answers. (If they don't, they're probably working together.)
The point is for them to understand the idea of primitives and to begin to think about programming
language design.
5. No. The process described will never terminate because the value of Count will never be 5.
6. The last statement is not executable because the lines drawn in the previous steps do not intersect.
7. One answer would be
Count = 2
repeat:
print(Count)
Count = Count + 1
until (Count >= 7)
8. One answer would be

27
 Count = 1
while (Count != 5):
print(Count)
Count = Count + 1
9. The conditions appearing in the statements would be negations of each other. That is, the statement
repeat (. . .) until (x is zero) is equivalent to do (. . .) while (x is not zero).
10. Here's an outline of one possible solution.
Starting from the right end of the input, find the first digit that is
smaller than the one to its right. (If there isn't such a digit, no the
input cannot be rearranged to represent a larger value.)
Call the position in the input in which this digit was found the target
position.
Interchange the digit found above with the smallest digit to its right
that is still larger than itself.
Sort the digits to the right of the target position in descending order
from right to left.
11. Suppose N is the given integer. Then the following will work. You may want to ask your students
how this solution could be made more efficient.
X = 1
while (X  N):
if (X divides N):
print(X)
X = X + 1
12. Start with a date whose day of the week is known. Figure out how many days are between that
date and the given date (remember leap years). Then divide that total by seven and use the remainder
to determine the displacement from the known day.
13. Pseudocode is a relaxed version of a programming language used to jot down ideas. A formal
programming language prescribes strict rules of grammar that must be obeyed.
14. Syntax refers to the way something is expressed, whereas semantics refers to what is being
expressed.
15. W = 6, X = 9, Y = 5, Z = 1. Most will get their foot in the door by realizing that the carry has to be
1. Then they may figure out that X must be 9 since X + Y = 1Y.
16. V = 0, W = 4, X = 1, Y = 3, Z = 9. Most will get their foot in the door by realizing that X must be 1
since X times XY is XY. Then they may discover that Z must be 9 since it must be a one-digit perfect
square (Y times Y) which when added to one produces a carry.
17. X = 1, Y = 0. A simple algorithm would be to try X = 1 and Y = 0 first. If that works, report the
solution. Otherwise, try X = 0 and Y = 1. If that works, report the solution. Otherwise, report that there
is no solution.
18. Andrews and Blake go through the shaft first (2 minutes), and Andrews returns with the lantern
(1 minute). Then, Johnson and Kelly go through (8 minutes), and Blake returns with the lantern (2
minutes). Finally, Andrews and Blake go through again (2 minutes). The total travel time is 2 + 1 + 8
+ 2 + 2 = 15 minutes.

28
19. They are the same. Suppose the volume of the small glass is V and x units of water are poured into
the large glass. Then the large glass contains V + x units of liquid—V units of wine and x units of
water. When the small glass is filled from the large one, x units of liquid are returned to the small
glass of which V/(V + x) is wine. Therefore, the small glass will end up with xV/(V + x) units of wine.
Furthermore, xx/(V + x) units of water will be returned to the small glass, meaning that exactly x –
xx/(V + x) = xV/(V + x) units of water will be left in the large glass.
20. Approximately 122 meters. Let the distance between the hives be y. Since each bee flies at a
constant speed, the ratio of the distances traveled must be the same each time the meet. Therefore,
50/(y – 50) = (y + 20)/(2y – 20). Solving for y implies that y is approximately 7.5 meters or 122 meters.
21. How about this?
def SubStringSearch(FirstString, SecondString):
P = 0
Success = false
while (P + length of FirstString) <= (length of SecondString)
and Success == false):
N = 1
while (P + Nth character in SecondString ==
Nth character in FirstString):
N = N + 1
if (N == length of FirstString):
Success = true
P = P + 1
return Success
22. Body: Everything indented below the while
Initialization: The first two assignment statements
Modification: The last assignment statement (Some could argue that it is the last three
assignment statements.)
Test: while (Current < 100)
The output will be 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89.
23. This is a recursive version of Problem 13. Its output will be 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89.
24. Move the print statement below the recursive call to MysteryWrite.
25. When searching for J: H, L, J
When searching for Z: H, L, N, 0
26. Sequential search: 3000
Binary search: at least 13
27. a. Count  5 b. Count = 1 c. (Count  5) or (Total  56)
28. The body consists of the indented statements below the while. It will be executed twice. The
proposed modification would produce a nonterminating loop.
29. It may not terminate because the value in Count may never be exactly 1 (due to round-off errors).
30.

29
Another document from Scribd.com that is
random and unrelated content:
“I declare you’ll make me lose my temper with you!” said Mrs. Palmer
violently. “Answer me this instant.”
“I went to the cinema.”
“Who took you?”
“That fellow in the office—that Leary boy.”
“Why couldn’t you come in last night and say where you’d been, then?
The fact is, Elsie, you’re telling me a pack of lies, and I know it perfectly
well. You can’t take your mother in, let me tell you, whatever you may
think, I’m sure I don’t know what to do with you. I sometimes think
you’d better go and live with your aunties; you’d find Aunt Gertie strict
enough, I can tell you.”
Elsie knew this to be true, and was fiercely resolved never to put it to the
test.
“What you want is a thorough good whipping,” said Mrs. Palmer,
already absent-minded and preoccupied with preparations for breakfast.
“Put that kettle on, Elsie, and be quick about it. And I give you fair
warning that the very next time I have to speak to you like this—(see if
that’s the girl at the door—it ought to be, by this time)—the very next
time, I’ll make you remember it in a way you won’t enjoy, my lady.”
Mrs. Palmer’s active display of wrath was over, and Elsie knew that she
had nothing to do but to keep out of her mother’s way for the next few
days.
She helped to get the breakfast ready in silence. She was too much used
to similar scenes to feel very much upset by this one; nevertheless it
influenced her in favour of acting upon Irene Tidmarsh’s advice.
She knew very well that it would not be as easy to hoodwink Mrs.
Palmer over a week-end spent out of London as she had pretended to Mr.
Williams. Elsie was still afraid of her mother, and believed that she
might quite well carry out her threat of sending her daughter to live with
the two aunts.
Her chief pang was at relinquishing the thought of the pink silk
underclothes, but she endeavoured to persuade herself that they might
still be hers, when she should be on the point of marrying Mr. Williams.
After all, it would be more satisfactory to own them on those terms than
to be obliged to put them away after two days into hiding, in some place
—and Elsie wondered ruefully what place—where they should not be
spied out by Geraldine.
She went to the office as usual and was a good deal disconcerted when
Fred Leary announced that “the Old Man” had telephoned to say that he
was called away on business, and should not be back for two days.
Elsie, rather afraid that her own determination might weaken, decided to
write to him, sending the letter to his home address.
Her unformed, back-sloping hand, covered one side of a sheet of
notepaper that she bought in the luncheon hour.
“D M .W ,
“One line to tell you that I have thought over your very kind
suggestion about a holiday, but do not feel that I can say yes
to same. Dear Mr. Williams, it is very kind of you, but I
cannot feel it would be right of me to do as you ask, and so I
must say no, hoping you will not be vexed with me. I do want
to be a good girl. So no more, from
“Your little friend,
“E .”
 VIII

I took Elsie exactly three months to bring Mr. Williams to the point
predicted by Irene Tidmarsh.
During that time she was quiet, and rather timid, scrupulously exact in
saying “sir” and very careful never to be heard laughing or chattering
with Fred Leary.
Williams at first made no allusion to her note. When at last he spoke of
it, he did so very much in his ordinary manner.
“I was sorry to get your little note the other day, Elsie, and to see that
you don’t quite trust me after all.”
“Oh, but I do,” she stammered.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid my little friend isn’t quite
as staunch as I fancied. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps some day you’ll know
me better.”
“It wasn’t anything like that. It was just that I—I thought mother
wouldn’t like it,” simpered Elsie. “It didn’t seem to me to be quite right.”
“It would have been quite right, or I shouldn’t have asked you to do it,”
he replied firmly. “I’m a man of great experience, Elsie, a good many
years older than you are, and you may be quite sure that I should never
mislead you. But I see I made a mistake, you are not old enough to have
the courage to be unconventional.”
He looked hard at her as he spoke, but Elsie’s vanity was not of the sort
to be wounded at the term of which he had made use. She merely
drooped her head and looked submissive.
A month later he asked her, in thinly veiled terms, whether she had yet
changed her mind.
“I shan’t ever change it,” Elsie declared. “I daresay I’ve sometimes been
rather silly, and not as careful as I ought, but I know very well that it
wouldn’t do for me to act the way you suggest. Why, you’d never respect
me the same way again, if I did!”
She felt that the last sentence was a masterpiece. Williams shrugged his
shoulders.
“Come, Elsie, let’s understand one another. You’re not ignorant, a girl
like you must have had half a dozen men after her. And then what about
that doctor fellow—Woolley?”
“What about him?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Something happened to cause the
unpleasantness between Mrs. Woolley and yourself, and I’ve a very
shrewd suspicion that I know what it was.”
“Then I needn’t tell you,” said Elsie feebly.
“That isn’t the way to speak.”
His low voice was suddenly nasty, and she felt frightened. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes. Don’t do it again, Elsie. How far did Woolley go? That’s what I
want to know.”
“He—he frightened me. He tried to kiss me.”
“And succeeded. Anything else?”
“Mr. Williams!”
He gazed at her stonily. “Well,” he said at last, “I’m half inclined to
believe you. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen!” he repeated after her, and his accent was covetous. “You
should be very innocent, at seventeen, Elsie—very innocent and very
pure. Now, my dear little late wife, when we were married, although she
was a good deal older than you are, knew nothing whatever. Her husband
had to teach her everything. That’s as it should be, Elsie.”
A certain prurient relish of his own topic, in Williams’ manner, affected
Elsie disagreeably. Neither did she like his reference to Mrs. Williams.
She was glad that the conversation should at that point be interrupted by
the entrance of the austere Mr. Cleaver.
Suspense was beginning to make her feel very irritable. She now wanted
Williams to propose marriage to her, but had begun to doubt his ever
doing so. He continued to look at her meaningly, and to lay his rather
desiccated hand from time to time on her shoulder, or upon the thin
fabric of her sleeve, with a lingering, caressing touch. Elsie, however,
had inspired too many men to such demonstrations to feel elated by
them, and her employer’s proximity roused in her little or no physical
response.
One day, to her surprise, he brought her a present.
“Open it, Elsie.”
She eagerly lifted the lid of the small cardboard box.
Inside was a large turquoise brooch, shaped like a swallow, with
outspread wings.
She knew instantly that it had belonged to his dead wife, but the
knowledge did not lessen her pleasure at possessing a trinket that she
thought beautiful as well as valuable, nor her triumph that he should
wish to give it to her.
“Oh, I say, how lovely! Do you really mean me to keep it?”
“Yes, really,” Mr. Williams assured her solemnly.
“But I couldn’t! It’s too lovely—I mean to say, really it is!”
“No, it isn’t, Elsie. You must please put it on, and let me have the
pleasure of seeing you wear it.”
“Put it on for me, then,” murmured Elsie, glancing up at him, and then
down again.
He took the ornament from her with hands that fumbled. “Where?”
“Just here.”
She indicated the round neck of her transparent blouse, just below the
collar-bone.
He stuck the pin in clumsily enough, and she stifled a little scream as it
pricked her, but remained passive under his slowly-moving, dry-skinned
fingers.
“There! I’m sorry there isn’t a looking-glass, Elsie.”
“Oh, I’ve got one! Don’t look, though!”
She stooped, pulled up her skirt, revealing a plump calf, and in a flash
had pulled out a tiny combined mirror and powder-puff from the top of
her stocking. She had no other pocket.
Williams did not utter a sound. He only kept his pale grey eyes fixed
gleamingly upon her.
“Are you shocked?” Elsie giggled. “I didn’t ought to, I suppose, but
really it’s hard to know what else to do.”
She peeped into the tiny looking-glass. “Isn’t it pretty!”
“You are,” said Williams awkwardly. “How are you going to thank me,
Elsie?”
He always seemed to take pleasure in repeating her name.
“How do you suppose?”
“You know what I’d like.”
He came nearer to her, and put his hands upon her shoulders. Although
Elsie was short, he was very little taller.
She shut her eyes and put her head back, her exposed throat throbbing
visibly. She could feel his breath upon her face, when suddenly she
ducked her head, twisting out of his grasp, and cried wildly:
“No, no! It isn’t right—I oughtn’t to let you! Oh, Mr. Williams, I’d rather
not have the brooch, though it’s lovely. But I can’t be a bad girl!”
He had taken a step backwards in his disconcerted amazement. “What on
earth——Why, Elsie, you don’t think there’s any harm in a kiss, do
you?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered, half crying. “But you make me feel so—so
helpless, somehow, Mr. Williams.”
Purest instinct was guiding her, but no subtlety of insight could have
better gauged the effect of her implication upon the little solicitor’s
vanity.
He drew himself up, and expanded the narrow width of his chest.
“You’re not frightened of me, little girl, are you?”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered Elsie.
“I can assure you that you needn’t be. Why, I—I—I’m very fond of you,
surely you know that?”
Elsie felt rather scornful of the lameness of his speech. She saw that he
was afraid of his own impulses, and the knowledge encouraged her.
“Here, Mr. Williams,” she said rather tremulously, holding out the
turquoise brooch.
He closed her hand over it. “Keep it. Are you fond of jewellery?”
“Yes, very.”
“It’s natural, at your age. I’d like to give you pretty things, Elsie, but you
mustn’t be such a little prude.”
“Mother always told me that one shouldn’t take a present—not a
valuable present—from a man, without he was a relation or—or else
——” She stopped.
“Or else what?”
“He’d asked one to marry him,” half whispered Elsie.
Williams recoiled so unmistakably that for a sickening instant she was
afraid of having gone too far.
Genuine tears ran down her face, and she did not know what to say.
“Don’t cry,” said the solicitor dryly. “I’d like you to keep the brooch, and
you can thank me in your own time, and your own way.”
“Oh, how good you are!”
She was relieved that he said no more to her that day.
She wore the brooch on the following morning, and fingered it very
often. Williams eyed her complacently.
She began to notice that he was taking some pains with his own
appearance, occasionally wearing a flower in his coat, and discarding the
crêpe band round his arm. She even suspected, from a certain smell
noticeable in the small office, that he was trying the effect of a hair-dye
upon his scanty strands of hair. Elsie mocked him inwardly, but felt
excited and hopeful.
When Williams actually did ask her to marry him, Elsie’s head reeled
with the sudden knowledge of having achieved her end. He had offered
to take her for a walk one Sunday afternoon, and they were primly going
across the Green Park.
To Elsie’s secret astonishment, he had neither put his arm round her
waist nor attempted to direct their steps towards a seat beneath one of the
more distant trees. He simply walked beside her, with short little steps,
every now and then jerking up his chin to pull at his tie, and saying very
little.
Then, suddenly, it came.
“Elsie, perhaps you don’t know that I’ve been thinking a great deal about
you lately.” He cleared his throat. “I—I’ve been glad to see that you’re a
very good girl. Perhaps you’ve not noticed one or two little tests, as I
may call them, that I’ve put you through. We lawyers learn to be very
cautious in dealing with human nature, you know. And I’m free to admit
that I thought very highly of you after—after thinking it over—for the
attitude you took up over that little trip we were going to take together.
Not, mind you, that you weren’t mistaken. I should never, never have
asked you to do anything that wasn’t perfectly right and good. But your
scruples, however unfounded, made a very favourable impression on
me.”
He stopped and cleared his throat again.
Intuition warned Elsie to say nothing.
“A young girl can’t be too particular, Elsie. But I don’t want to give up
our plan—I want my little companion on holidays, as well as on work
days. Elsie,” said Mr. Williams impressively, “I want you to become my
little wife.”
And as she remained speechless, taken aback in spite of all her previous
machinations, he repeated:
“My dear, loving little wife.”
“Oh, Mr. Williams!”
“Call me Horace.”
Elsie very nearly giggled. She felt sure that it would be quite impossible
ever to call Mr. Williams Horace.
“Let’s sit down,” she suggested feebly.
They found two little iron chairs, and Mr. Williams selected them
regardless of their proximity to the public path.
When they sat down, Elsie, really giddy, leant back, but Mr. Williams
bent forward, not looking at her, and poking his stick, which was
between his knees, into the grass at their feet.
“Of course, there is a certain difference in our ages,” he said, speaking
very carefully, “but I do not consider that that would offer any very
insuperable objection to a—a happy married life. And I shall do my
utmost to make you happy, Elsie. My house is sadly in want of a
mistress, and I shall look to you to make it bright again. You will have a
servant, of course, and I will make you an allowance for the
housekeeping, and, of course, I need hardly say that my dear little wife
will look to me for everything that concerns her own expenditure.”
He glanced at her as though expecting her to be dazzled, as indeed she
was.
It occurred to neither of them that Elsie’s acceptance of his proposal was
being tacitly taken for granted without a word from herself. She
wondered if he would mention Mrs. Williams, but he did not do so.
He continued to talk to her of his house, and of the expensive furniture
that she would find in it, and of the fact that she would no longer have to
work.
All these considerations appealed to Elsie herself very strongly, and she
listened to him willingly, although a sense of derision pervaded her mind
at the extraordinary aloofness that her future husband was displaying.
At last, however, he signed to a taxi as they were leaving the park, and
said that he would take her to have some tea. Almost automatically, Elsie
settled herself against him as soon as the taxi had begun to move.
Rather stiffly, Williams passed his arm round her. His first kiss was a
self-conscious, almost furtive affair that Elsie received on her upraised
chin.
Intensely irritated by his clumsiness, she threw herself on him with
sudden violence, and forced her mouth against his in a long, clinging
pressure.

Elsie Palmer was married to Horace Williams at a registrar’s office rather

less than a fortnight later.
Williams had insisted both upon the early date and the quietness of the
wedding. He had refused to allow Elsie to tell her mother of the marriage
until it was accomplished, and a lurking fear of him, and schoolgirl
satisfaction in taking such a step upon her own responsibility, combined
to make her obedient.
Irene Tidmarsh and a man whose name Elsie never learnt, but who came
with Mr. Williams, were witnesses to the marriage. Elsie was principally
conscious that she was looking plain, unaccountably pale under a new
cream-coloured hat and feather, and with her new shoes hurting her feet.
It also occurred to her that she would have preferred a wedding in
church, with wedding-cake and a party to follow it.
She felt inclined to cry, especially when they came out of the dingy
office, after an astonishingly short time spent inside it, and found that it
was raining.
“Where are we going to?” said Irene blankly. (“My goodness, Elsie, just
look at your ring! Doesn’t it look queer?) I suppose you’ll take a taxi?”
Mr. Williams showed no alacrity to fall in with the suggestion, but after a
dubious look round at the grey sky and rain-glistening pavement he
signed with his umbrella to a taxi-cab.
“I suppose we’d better. Can I see you to your ’bus first, or do you prefer
the Tube?” he added to Irene.
Both girls flushed, and looked at one another.
“Aren’t you going to give us lunch, I should like to know?” murmured
Elsie.
“I’m sure if I’m in the way, I’ll take myself off at once, and only too
pleased to do it,” said Irene, her voice very angry. “Please don’t trouble
to see me to the station, Mr. Williams.”
“As you like,” he replied coolly, and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Miss
—er—Tidmarsh. I’m glad to have met you, and I hope we shall have the
pleasure of seeing you in Elsie’s new home one of these days.”
“Oh yes, do come, Ireen!” cried the bride, forgetting her mortification for
a moment. “I’ll run in and see you one of these evenings, and we’ll settle
it.”
“Get in, Elsie. You’re getting wet,” said Mr. Williams, and he pushed her
into the taxi and climbed in after her, leaving Irene Tidmarsh walking
away very quickly in the rain.
“Well, I must say you might have been a bit more civil,” began Elsie, and
then, as she turned her head round to face him, the words died away on
her lips.
“You didn’t think I was going to have a strange girl here, the first minute
alone with my wife, did you?” he said thickly. “You little fool!”
He caught hold of her roughly and kissed her with a vehemence that
startled her. For the first time, Elsie realised something of the possessive
rights that marriage with a man of Williams’ type would mean. For a
frantic instant she was held in the grip of that sense of irrevocability that
even the least imaginative can never wholly escape.
Her panic only endured for a moment.
“Don’t,” she began, as she felt that his embrace had pushed her over-
large hat unbecomingly to one side. She was entirely unwarmed by
passion, unattracted as she was by the man she had married, and chilled
and depressed besides in the raw atmosphere of a pouring wet day in
London.
The first sound of her husband’s voice taught her her lesson.
“There’s no ‘don’t’ about it now, Elsie. You remember that, if you
please. We’re man and wife now, and you’re mine to do as I please
with.”
His voice was at once bullying and gluttonous, and his dry, grasping
hands moved over her with a clutching tenacity that reminded her
sickeningly of a crab that she had once seen in the aquarium.
Elsie was frightened as she had never in her life been frightened before,
and the measure of her terror was that she could not voice it.
She remained absolutely silent, and as nearly as possible motionless,
beneath his unskilled caresses. Williams, however, hardly appeared to
notice her utter lack of responsiveness. He was evidently too much
absorbed in the sudden gratification of his own hitherto suppressed
desires.
Presently Elsie said faintly: “Where are we going to?”
“I thought you’d want some luncheon.”
“I couldn’t touch a morsel,” Elsie declared, shuddering. “Couldn’t you—
couldn’t you take me home?”
“Do you mean Hillbourne Terrace?”
“Yes. I’ve got to tell mother some time to-day, and I’d rather get it over.”
“Very well,” Williams agreed, with a curious little smile on his thin lips.
“But you mustn’t think of it as being home now, you know, Elsie. Your
home is where I live—where you’re coming back with me to-night. No
more office for my little girl after to-day.”
His short triumphant laugh woke no echo from her.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
“Of course I do!” said Elsie indignantly. “Why, mother’ll be simply
furious! You don’t suppose I’m going to stand up to her all by myself, do
you?”
“Why should she be furious, Elsie? You’ve not done anything
disgraceful in marrying me.”
His voice was as quiet as ever, but his intonation told her that he was
offended.
“I don’t mean that,” she explained confusedly. “Of course, mother knows
you, and all—it’s only the idea of me having gone and been and done it
all on my own hook; that’ll upset her for a bit. She’s always wanted to
make babies of us, me and Geraldine.”
“You haven’t told your sister anything, have you?”
“No fear. She’s a jealous thing, ever so spiteful, is Geraldine. You’ll see,
she’ll be as nasty as anything when she knows I’m actually—actually
——”
Elsie stopped, giggling.
“Actually what?”
“You know very well.”
“Say it.”
“Actually married, then,” said Elsie, blushing a good deal and with
affected reluctance.
When they arrived at Hillbourne Terrace, and the taxi drew up before the
familiar flight of steps, she began to feel very nervous. She told herself
that she was a married woman, and looked at her new wedding-ring, but
she did not feel in the least like a married woman, nor independent of
Mrs. Palmer’s anger.
Elsie’s mother opened the door herself. “What on earth——Are you ill,
Elsie, coming home in a cab at this hour of the morning? Whatever
next!”
“Mr. Williams is here, Mother,” said Elsie, pushing her way into the
dining-room.
Geraldine was there, a check apron, torn and greasy, tied round her waist,
and her hair still in curling-pins.
She was placing clean forks and spoons all round the table.
She looked at her sister with unfriendly surprise. Elsie had worn her
everyday clothes on leaving home that morning, and had changed at
Irene’s house.
“Whatever are you dressed up like that for?” said Geraldine at once.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I’d like to know where you get the money to pay for your new hats,”
said Geraldine significantly. “First one thing, and then another—I
wonder you don’t sport a tiara, young Elsie.”
“Perhaps I may, before I’ve done.”
Elsie was not really thinking of what she was saying, but was rather
listening to a sound of voices in the hall outside that denoted a
conversation between Williams and Mrs. Palmer.
She could not help hoping that he was breaking the news of their
marriage to her mother. Elsie still felt certain that Mrs. Palmer would be
very angry. It astonished her when her mother came into the room and
kissed her vehemently.
“You sly young monkey, you! Geraldine, has this girl told you what she’s
done?”
“What?”
“Gone and got married! This morning!! To Mr. Horace Williams!!!” Mrs.
Palmer’s voice rose in a positively jubilant crescendo.
“Married!” screamed Geraldine. Her face became scarlet, and then grey.
“My little girl, married at seventeen!” said Mrs. Palmer with her head on
one side.
She examined Elsie’s plump hand with its wedding-ring.
Horace Williams stood by, quietly smiling. “Then you’re willing to trust
her to me, Mrs. Palmer? You’ll forgive us for taking you by surprise, but
you see, in all the circumstances, I could hardly—I naturally preferred—
something very quiet. But you and I will have a little talk about business
one of these days, and you’ll find that part of it all in good order. Elsie
will be provided for, whatever happens.”
“So generous,” murmured Mrs. Palmer.
She insisted upon their remaining to dinner, and sent out Nellie Simmons
for a bottle of wine. Elsie, now that she saw that her mother looked upon
her marriage with the elderly solicitor as a triumph, and that Geraldine
was madly jealous of her, became herself excited and elated.
Williams went to the office in the afternoon, but Elsie remained at home
and packed up all her things.
She made her farewells quite cheerfully when Williams came to fetch
her, still thinking of her mother’s repeated congratulations and praises.
It came upon her as a shock, as they were driving away, when Williams
observed dryly:
“That’s over, and now there’ll be no need for you to be over here very
often, Elsie, or vice versa. You must remember that my house is your
only home, now.”
 PART II

T European war affected Elsie Williams as much, or as little, as it

affected many other young women. She had been married a little over a
year in August 1914.
She was vaguely alarmed, vaguely thrilled, moved to a great display of
emotional enthusiasm at the sight of a khaki uniform and at the sound of
a military band.
Later on, she sang and hummed “Keep the Home Fires Burning,”
“Tipperary,” and “We Don’t Want to Lose You, but we Think you Ought
to Go,” and was voluble and indignant about the difficulties presented by
sugar rations and meat coupons. She resented the air raids over London,
and devoured the newspaper accounts of the damage done by them; she
listened to, and eagerly retailed, anecdotes such as that of the Angels of
Mons, or that of the Belgian child whose hands had been cut off by
German soldiers; and after a period in which she declared that
“everybody” would be ruined, she found herself in possession of more
money than ever before.
Never before had so many clients presented themselves to Messrs.
Williams and Cleaver, and never before had there been so much money
about. Elsie bought herself a fur coat and a great many other things, and
went very often to the cinema, and sometimes to the theatre. She very
soon found, however, that Williams, when he could not take her out
himself, disliked her going with anybody else.
He was willing enough that she should take Irene with her, or her sister
Geraldine, but if she went out with any man, Williams became coldly,
caustically angry, and sooner or later always found an opportunity for
quarrelling with him.
Elsie was bored and angry, contemptuous of his jealousy, but far too
much afraid of him to rebel openly.
She was more and more conscious of having made a mistake in her
marriage, but her regrets were resentful rather than profound, and her
facile nature found consolation in her own social advancement, her
comfortable suburban home, and her tyrannical dominion over a capped
and aproned maid.
She very seldom went to Hillbourne Terrace, and had quarrelled with her
mother when Mrs. Palmer had suggested that it was time she had a baby.
Elsie did not want to have a baby at all. She feared pain and discomfort
almost as much as she did the temporary eclipse of her good looks, and
the thought of a child that should be Horace Williams’s as well as hers
filled her with disgust.
She only spoke of this openly to Irene, and Irene undertook the purchase
of certain drugs which she declared would render impossible the
calamity dreaded by her friend. Elsie thankfully accepted the offer, and
trusted implicitly to the efficacy of the bottles and packages that Irene
bought.
Sometimes Horace declared that he wanted a son, and as time went on
his taunts became less veiled, but Elsie cared little for them so long as
she remained immune from the trial of motherhood.
She spent her days idly, doing very little housework, sometimes making
or mending her own clothes, and often poring for a whole afternoon over
a novel from the circulating library, or an illustrated paper, whilst she ate
innumerable sweets out of little paper bags. She never remembered
anything about the books that she read thus, and sometimes read the
same one a second time without perceiving that she was doing so until
she had nearly finished it.
After a time, Elsie became rather envious of the money that Irene was
making as a munitions worker, and the “good time” that Geraldine
enjoyed in the Government office where she had found a job. Elsie
seriously told her husband that she felt she must go and do some “war
work.”
“You are not in the same position as an unmarried girl, Elsie. You have
other duties. These war jobs are for young women who have nothing else
to do.”
“I don’t see that I’ve got so much to do.”
“If you had children, you would understand that a woman’s sphere is in
her own home.”
“But I haven’t got children,” said Elsie, half under her breath.
“It’s early days to talk like that,” Williams retorted, and his glance at her
was malevolent. “One of these days you’ll have a baby, I hope, like
every other healthy married woman, and neither you nor I nor anybody
else can say how soon that day may come.”
“Well, I suppose till it does come—if it ever does-you’ve no objection to
me doing my bit in regard to this war?”
“I don’t know. What is it you propose to do?”
“Oh, get a job of some kind. Ireen says they’re asking for shorthand-
typists all over the place, and willing to pay for them, too. I could get
into one of these Government shows easily, or I could go in the V.A.D.s
or something, and take a job in a hospital.”
“No,” said Williams decidedly. “No. Out of the question.”
Elsie, who at home had, as a matter of course, surreptitiously disobeyed
every order or prohibition of her mother’s that ran counter to her own
wishes, knew already that she would not disobey her husband.
She was afraid of him.
On the rare occasions when she saw any of her own family, Elsie always
made a great display of her own grandeur and independence. She was
really proud of her little suburban villa, her white-and-gold china, fumed
oak “suite” of drawing-room furniture, “ruby” glasses and plated cake
basket. She was also proud of being Mrs. Williams, and of wearing a
wedding-ring.
Geraldine came to see her once or twice, and then declared herself too
busy at the office to take the long tram journey, and as Elsie hardly ever
went to Hillbourne Terrace, they seldom met. But Irene Tidmarsh came
often to see Elsie.
She came in the daytime, when Williams was at the office, and very
often she and Elsie went to the cinema together in the afternoon. Irene
seemed able to get free time whenever she liked, and she explained this
to Elsie by telling her that the superintendent at the works was a great
friend of hers.
Elsie perfectly understood what this meant, and realised presently that
Irene was never available on Saturdays and Sundays.
The war went on, and Mr. Williams made more and more money, and
was fairly generous to Elsie, although he never gave her an independent
income, but only occasional presents of cash, and instructions that all her
bills should be sent in to him.
He did not rescind his command that she should not attempt any war
work, although, as the months lengthened into years, it seemed fairly
certain that there was to be no family to give Elsie occupation at home.
At twenty-five, Elsie Williams, from sheer boredom, had lost a great deal
of the vitality that had characterised Elsie Palmer, and with it a certain
amount of her remarkable animal magnetism. She was still attractive to
men, but her own susceptibilities had become strangely blunted and no
casual promiscuity would now have power to stir her.
She was aware that life had become uninteresting to her, and accepted
the fact with dull, bewildered, entirely unanalytical resentment.
“I s’pose I’m growing middle-aged,” she said to Irene, giggling without
conviction.
One day, more than a year after the Armistice in November 1918, Irene
Tidmarsh came to Elsie full of excitement.
She had heard of a wonderful crystal-gazer, and wanted to visit her with
Elsie.
Elsie was quite as much excited as Irene. “I’d better take off my
wedding-ring,” she said importantly. “They say they’ll get hold of any
clue, don’t they?”
“This woman isn’t like that,” Irene declared. “She’s what they call a
psychic, really she is. This girl that told me about her, she said it quite
frightened her, the things the woman knew. All sorts of things about her
past, too.”
“I’m not sure I’d like that,” said Elsie, giggling. “I know quite enough
about my past without wanting help. But I must say I’d like to know
what she’s got to say about the future. You know, I mean what’s going to
happen to me.”
“Oh, well, you’re married, my dear. There’s not much else she can tell
you, except whether you’ll have boys or girls.”
“Thank you!” Elsie exclaimed, tossing her head. “None of that truck for
me, thank you. Losing one’s figure and all!”
“You’re right. Anyway, let’s come on, shall we?”
“Come on. I say, Ireen, she’ll see us both together, won’t she?”
“I hope so. I wouldn’t go in to her alone for anything. Swear you won’t
ever repeat anything she says about me, though.”
“I swear. And you won’t either?”
“No.”
The crystal-gazer lived in a street off King’s Road, Chelsea, a long way
down.
A little hunch-backed girl opened the door and asked them to go into the
waiting-room. This was a small, curtained recess off the tiny hall, and
contained two chairs and a rickety table covered with thin, cheap-looking
publications. There were several copies of a psychic paper and various
pamphlets that purported to deal with the occult.
“I’m a bit nervous, aren’t you?” whispered Elsie. She fiddled with her
wedding-ring, and finally took it off and put it in her purse. When the
hunch-backed child appeared at the curtains, both girls screamed slightly.
“Madame Clara is ready for you,” announced the little girl, in a harsh,
monotonous voice.
She led them up to the first floor, into a room that was carefully darkened
with blue curtains drawn across the windows. They could just discern a
black figure, stout and very upright, sitting on a large chair in the middle
of the room. A round stand set on a single slender leg was beside her.
Elsie clutched at Irene’s hand in a nervous spasm.
The black figure bowed from the waist without rising. “Do you wish me
to see you both together, ladies?” Her voice was harsh and rather raucous
in tone.
“Yes, please,” said Irene boldly.
“You quite understand that the charge will be the same as for two
separate interviews?”
“Yes.”
The little girl advanced with a small beaded bag. “The fee is payable in
advance, if you please.”
Elsie fumbled in her purse, and pulled out two ten-shilling notes.
“Half a guinea each, if you please, ladies.”
“Irene, have you got two sixpences?” Elsie whispered, agitated.
Irene, by far the more collected of the two, produced a shilling, and the
little girl with the bag went away.
“Will you two ladies be seated? One on either side of the table, please—
not next to one another.”
Elsie made a despairing clutch at Irene’s hand again, but her friend shook
her head, and firmly took her place on the other side of Madame Clara.
Elsie sank into the remaining chair, and felt that she was trembling
violently. Her nervousness was partly pleasurable excitement, and partly
involuntary reaction to the atmosphere diffused by the dim, shaded room
and the autocratic solemnity of Madame Clara.
A sweet, rather sickly smell was discernible.
The silence affected Elsie so that she wanted to scream.
Her eyes were by this time accustomed to the semi-darkness, and she
could see that Madame Clara was leaning forward, her loose sleeves
falling away from her fat, bare arms, her elbows resting on the little
table, and her hands over her eyes.
Suddenly the woman drew herself upright, and turned towards Irene.
“You, first. You have a stronger personality than your friend. It was you
who brought her here. Do you wish me to look into the crystal for you?”
“Yes, I do,” gasped Irene.
Elsie wondered from where the crystal would appear, and then she
noticed the faint outline of a globe in front of the seer, on the little stand.
A thrill of superstitious awe ran through her.
“Make your mind a blank as far as possible, please ... do not think of the
past, the present, or the future ... relax ... relax ... relax....”
Madame Clara’s voice deepened, and she began to speak very slowly and
distinctly, leaning back in her chair, the crystal ball before her eyes.
“Time is an arbitrary division made by man—the crystal will not always
show what is past and what is to come. For instance, I see illness here—
bodily suffering—but I do not know if it has visited you or is still to
come. It may even be the suffering of one near to you....”
She paused for an instant, and Elsie just caught Irene’s smothered
exclamation of “Father!”
“Hush, please,” said the seeress. “The shadow of sickness deepens—it
deepens into the blackness of death. A man—an old man—he is dying.
You will get money from him. Beware of those who seek to flatter you.
You are impressionable, but clear-sighted; impulsive, yet self-controlled;
reserved, but intensely passionate. I see marriage for you in the future,
but with a man somewhat older than yourself. I see conflict....” She
stopped again.
“Perhaps the conflict is already over. You have certainly known love—
passion——”
Elsie, from mingled nervousness and embarrassment, suddenly giggled.
The clairvoyante raised an authoritative hand. “It is impossible for me to
go on if there are resistances,” she said angrily, in the voice that she had
used at first, ugly and rather hoarse.
“Shut up, Elsie!” came sharply from Irene.
Elsie ran her finger-nails into her palms in an endeavour to check the
nervous, spasmodic laughter that threatened to overcome her.
“The current is broken,” said Madame Clara in an indignant voice.
There was a silence.
At last Elsie heard Irene say timidly:
“Won’t you go on, madame?”
“I’m exhausted,” said the medium in a fatigued voice. “You will have to
return to me another day—alone. All that I can say to you now, I have
said. Beware of opals, and of a red-haired man. Your lucky stone is the
turquoise—you should wear light blue, claret colour, and all shades of
yellow, and avoid pinks, reds and purple.”
She stopped.
Elsie, though awestruck, was also vaguely disappointed. It did not seem
to her that she had learnt a great deal about Irene, and the warnings about
colours and precious stones might have come out of any twopenny
booklet off a railway bookstall, such as “What Month Were You Born
In?” or “Character and Fortune Told by Handwriting.”
Then she remembered that she herself had made Madame Clara angry by
laughing, and that the woman had said the current was broken.
“Probably she’s furious,” Elsie thought, “and she won’t tell me as much
as she told Ireen. And she’s got our money, too. What a swindle!”
“What about my friend?” said Irene Tidmarsh. Her voice sounded rather
sulky.
“Your friend is a sceptic,” said the clairvoyante coldly.
“No, really——” Elsie began.
The woman turned towards her so abruptly that she was startled.
She could discern an enormous pair of heavy-looking dark eyes gazing
into hers.
“Make your mind a blank—relax,” said Madame Clara, her tone once
more a commanding one.
Elsie moved uneasily in her chair and fixed her eyes on the crystal. She
could only see it faintly, a glassy spot of uncertain outline.
The seeress bent forward, leaning over the transparent globe. After a
moment or two she began to speak, with the same voice and intonation
that she had made use of in speaking about Irene.
“The crystal reflects all things, but Time is an arbitrary division made by
man—we do not always see what is past, and what is future.... In your
case, there is very little past—how young you are!—and what there is, is
all on one plane, the physical. You are magnetic, extraordinarily
magnetic. You have known men—you are married, if not by man’s law,
then by nature’s law—you will know other men. But you are not awake
—your mind is asleep. Nothing is awake but your senses....”
Elsie’s mouth was dry. She longed to stop the woman but a horrible
fascination kept her silent, tensely listening.
“Now you are bored—satiated. You have repeated the same experience
again and again, young as you are, until it means nothing to you. You
have no outside interests—and you are ceaselessly craving for a new
emotion.”
Abruptly the sibyl dropped on to a dark note.
“It will come. I see love here—love that you have never known yet.
There will be jealousy, intrigue—letters will pass—beware of the written
word——Ah!”
The exclamation was so sudden and so piercing that Elsie uttered a
stifled scream. But this time she was not rebuked.
Madame Clara, all at once, was calling out shrilly in a hard voice, an
indescribable blend of horror and excitement in her tone:
“Oh, God—what is it? Look—look, there in the crystal—what have you
done? There’s blood, and worse than blood! Oh, my God, what’s this?
It’s all over England—you—they’re talking about you——”
Irene Tidmarsh screamed wildly, and Elsie realised that she had sprung
to her feet. She herself was utterly unable to move, wave after wave of
sick terror surging through her as the high, unrecognisable voice of the
clairvoyante screeched and ranted, and then broke horribly.
“It’s blood! My God, get out of here! I won’t see any more—you’re all
over blood!...”
A strange, strangled cry, that Elsie did not recognise as having come
from her own lips, broke across the obscurity, the room surged round her,
she tried to clutch at the table, and felt herself falling heavily.
Elsie Williams had fainted.
She came back to a dazed memory of physical nausea, bewilderment,
and resentment, as she felt herself being unskilfully pulled into a sitting
position.
“Let go,” she muttered, “let me go....”
“She’s coming round! For Heaven’s sake, Elsie ... here, try and get hold
of her....”
She felt herself pulled and propelled to her feet, and even dragged a few
steps by inadequate supporters.
Then she sank down again, invaded by a renewal of deadly sickness, but
she was conscious that they had somehow got her outside the dark,
scented room, and that the door had been slammed behind her.
Very slowly her perceptions cleared, and she realised that Irene was
gripping her on one side, and the little hunch-backed girl holding a futile
hand beneath her elbow on the other.
With an effort, Elsie raised her head.
“Look here, old girl, are you better?” said Irene, low and urgently. “I
want to get out of here as quickly as possible. D’you think you can get
downstairs?”
Elsie, without clearly knowing why, was conscious that she, too, wanted
to get away.
She pulled herself to her feet, shuddering, and staggered down the stairs,
leaning heavily on Irene.
“What happened?”
“Oh, you just turned queer. Don’t think about it. Look here, we’d better
have a taxi, hadn’t we?”
“Yes. I couldn’t walk a step, that’s certain. Why, my knees are shaking
under me.”
“Go and get a taxi,” Irene commanded the hunch-backed child, who
went obediently away.
Elsie sat down on the lowest stair and wiped her wet, cold face with her
handkerchief.
“What made me go off like that, Ireen? That woman said something
beastly, didn’t she?”
“Oh she’s mad, that’s what she is. She suddenly started ranting, and you
got frightened, I suppose—and no wonder. Never mind, you’ll soon be
home now.”
It struck Elsie that Irene was looking at her in a strangely anxious way,
and that she was talking almost at random, as though to obliterate the
impression of what had passed at the séance.
Elsie herself could not remember clearly, but there was a lurking horror
at the back of her mind.
“What did she say?” she persisted feebly.
“Here’s the taxi!” cried Irene, in intense relief. “Here, get in, Elsie.
Thank you,” she added to the child. “Don’t wait, I’ll tell the man where
to go.”
She gave the driver Elsie’s address after the little girl had entered the
house again, and then climbed in beside her friend, drawing a long
breath.
“Thank the Lord! We got away pretty quickly, didn’t we? Well, it’s the
last time I’ll meddle with anything of that kind, I swear. I say, Elsie, had
we better stop at a chemist’s and get you something?”
“Yes—no. I don’t care. Ireen, I want to know what that woman said. It
was something awful about me, wasn’t it?”
“She had a—kind of fit, I think. I don’t believe she knew what she was
saying—she just screamed out a pack of nonsense. And you gave a yell,
and went down like a log. I can tell you, you’ve pretty nearly scared the
life out of me, young Elsie.”
Irene was indeed oddly white-faced and jerky. Her manner was as
unnatural as was her sudden volubility.
Elsie, still feeling weak and giddy, leant her head back and closed her
eyes. She felt quite unable to make the effort of remembering what had
happened at the clairvoyante’s house, and was moreover instinctively
aware that the recollection, when it did come, would bring dismay and
terror.
She and Irene Tidmarsh did not exchange a word until the taxi stopped.
“Here we are. You’d better pay him, Elsie. I’ll take the Tube from the
corner, and get home in half an hour.”
“Aren’t you coming in with me?” said Elsie, surprised.
“I don’t think I will. I’d rather get straight home.”
“Oh, do!” urged Elsie, half crying. She felt very much shaken. “I’m all
alone; Horace won’t be back till seven, and this has upset me properly.
Besides, I know I shall remember what it was that awful woman said in a
minute, and I’m frightened. You must come in, Ireen.”
“I can’t,” repeated Irene, inexorably. “I ... really, I’d rather not, Elsie.”
The door opened, and Irene turned rapidly and walked away down the
street.
Elsie tottered into the house.
“I’m ill,” she said abruptly to the servant. “I fainted while I was out, and
I feel like nothing on earth now. I shall go to bed.”
“Yes, ’m. Shall I go for a doctor, ’m?” said the girl zealously.
“No,” said Elsie sharply. “I don’t want a doctor. Telephone to Mr.
Williams at the office, Emma, and ask him to come home early. Say I’m
ill.”
“Yes, ’m.”
Elsie dragged herself upstairs and took off some of her clothes. She was
shivering violently, and presently pulled her blue cotton kimono round
her and slipped into bed. She lay there with closed eyes, shuddering from
time to time, until Emma brought up a cup of strong tea. Elsie drank it
avidly, lay down again and felt revived. Presently she dozed.
The opening of the door roused her. It was nearly dark, but she knew that
it must be her husband, who never knocked before entering their joint
bedroom.
“What’s all this, Elsie?”
“I felt rotten,” she said wearily. “Turn on the light, Horace.”
He did so, and advanced towards the bed. His face wore an expression of
concern, and he walked on tiptoe.
“I fainted while I was out with Ireen,” Elsie explained, “and I was simply
ages coming to. We came back in a cab, and I must say Ireen’s awfully
selfish. She wouldn’t come in with me, though she must have seen I
wasn’t fit to be left—just turned and walked off. I’m done with her, after
this.”
“Where had you been?” enquired Williams quickly.
“Oh, just out.”
“Where to?”
“I suppose you’ll call me a fool, if I say it was to see one of those
clairvoyante women, someone Ireen had heard of. It was all Ireen’s
doing—she persuaded me to go.”
“Very silly of you both,” said the little solicitor coldly. “Did this person
upset you?”
“Yes. She had a sort of fit, I think, and called out a whole lot of
nonsense, only I can’t remember what it was.” Elsie moved uneasily.
“Where does she live?”
“Why?”
“She ought to be prosecuted for obtaining money under false pretences. I
suppose you gave her money?”
“Oh yes.”
“You’d better give me her name and address and I’ll see that she is
properly dealt with.”
“I’d rather not.”
Horace Williams shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you’d better get up and
come down to supper, hadn’t you? There’s no reason for lying in bed if
you’re not ill.”
“All right,” Elsie agreed sullenly.
Her husband never shouted at her or threatened her, but she was afraid of
him, and of a certain sinister dryness that characterised his manner when
he was displeased.
The dryness was there now.
Elsie spent the evening downstairs. Her husband read the newspaper, and
she turned over the pages of a fashion magazine listlessly. Her thoughts,
unwillingly enough, returned again and again to the scene in the
clairvoyante’s room, but still she could not remember the actual words
screamed out by Madame Clara before she had lost consciousness. But
she remembered quite well other words, that had preceded them.
“You are magnetic ... extraordinarily magnetic.... You are not awake—
your mind is asleep.... Now, you are bored, satiated. You are ceaselessly
craving for a new emotion....”
Elsie reflected how true this was.
She glanced distastefully at her elderly husband.
The bald patch glistened on the top of his head, and he was breathing
heavily as he read his newspaper.
He had always been rather distasteful to her physically, and although the
continuous, degradingly inevitable proximity of married life in a small
suburban villa had hardened her into indifference, Elsie was still averse
from the more intimate aspects of marriage with him.
She wished that she could fall in love, remembering that Madame Clara
had said: “I see love here—love that you have never known yet.”
“That’s bunkum,” thought Elsie. “I’ve been in love heaps of times—I
was in love with that doctor fellow, Woolley. It doesn’t last, that’s all.”
She hardly ever met any men nowadays, as she resentfully reminded
herself.
The husbands of her married friends were at work all day, and if she
occasionally met them at their wives’ card-parties, they did not interest
her very greatly. Most of the wives distrusted the husbands and gave
them no opportunity for flirtation with other women. And Horace
Williams himself was a jealous man, always suspicious, and never
allowed his young wife to go anywhere with any man but himself.
Elsie had been for a long while in inward revolt against the dullness of
her life. She remembered with longing the old days of her girlhood,
when every walk had been the prelude to adventure, and the casual
kisses of unknown, or scarcely known, men had roused her to rapture.
Nowadays, she knew very well that she would be less easily satisfied.
The apathy that had been creeping over her ever since her marriage had
to a certain extent lessened the force of the animal magnetism by which
she had been able to lure the senses of almost every man she met, and for
the first time she was beginning to have doubts of her own attractiveness.
Elsie gave a sigh that was almost a groan.
Williams neither stirred nor raised his eyes.
“I think I’ll retire to my little downy,” Elsie murmured, drearily
facetious.
“It’s only a quarter past nine.”
“Oh, well, we lead such a deliriously exciting life that I’d better get some
rest, hadn’t I?” she said ironically. “Just to make up for all the late nights
we have.”
At last her husband put down the paper and looked coldly at her through
his pince-nez. “What is it you want, Elsie? I work hard all day at the
office, and you have plenty of time and money for amusing yourself in
the daytime—and a strange use you seem to make of them, judging by
to-day’s performance. What more do you want?”
“I don’t know. We might go to the pictures sometimes, or to a play. I hate
not having anything to do.”
“That’s the complaint of every woman who hasn’t got children.”
“I can’t help it,” said Elsie angrily.
He said nothing, but continued to fix his eyes upon her, with his most
disagreeable expression.
“Good-night, Horace.”
“I shall come up to bed before you’re asleep,” he said meaningly.
She went out of the room.
The thought crossed her mind, as it had often done before, that she had
made a frightful mistake in marrying Horace Williams.
“I was only eighteen,” she thought, “I ought to have waited. Perhaps
he’ll die.”
As she undressed, Elsie idly imagined a drama of which she herself
would, of course, be the heroine.
Horace would be at the office, as usual, and a telephone message would
come through to say that he was ill—very ill indeed—he was dead.
Everyone would admire the young widow in her black, with her string of
pearl beads.... Horace would leave her quite a lot of money. Elsie knew
that he was rich, although he had never told her his income. She would
stay on in the villa, but people would come and see her—she would go
out and enjoy herself—enjoy life, once more....
Elsie sighed again as she got into bed.
Bored and exhausted, she fell asleep almost at once, to dream vividly.
In her dream, she stood outside a closed door, knowing that something
unspeakably horrid lay beyond it. Terror paralysed her. At last she
pushed at the door, but it would not yield more than an inch or two.
Something was behind it. She looked down and saw a dark stain
spreading round her feet, oozing from beneath the resistant door.
Screaming and sweating, Elsie woke up, and as she did so the
remembrance came back to her in full of everything that the clairvoyante
had said that morning.
 II

“H , Elsie!”
“Hallo, Geraldine!”
“You’re quite a stranger, aren’t you? I think it’s about a year since we
had the honour of seeing your majesty last.”
“Well, now I have come, aren’t you going to take the trouble to invite me
to come in?” asked Elsie good-humouredly.
“There’s a visitor of mine in the drawing-room.”
“Who is it? Aunt Ada?”
“No, not Aunt Ada, Miss Smarty. It’s a friend of mine, I tell you, who I
knew at the office during the war.”
“Well, you can introduce me to her, I suppose,” said Elsie carelessly.
She noticed that Geraldine’s hair was not, as it generally was, in curling-
pins, and that she was wearing a new dress, of an unbecoming shade of
emerald green. Geraldine always went wrong over her clothes, Elsie
reflected complacently. She herself wore a new black picture hat, and it
was partly from the desire to show herself in it that she had come to her
old home.
“Where’s mother?”
“Out.”
“What a mercy!”
Elsie walked into the familiar drawing-room, feeling glad that she no
longer lived at Hillbourne Terrace, under her mother’s dominion, and
forced to share a bedroom with the fretful Geraldine.
A young man of two- or three-and-twenty was sitting in the drawing-
room, and rose to his feet as Elsie and Geraldine came in.
“This is my sister, Mrs. Horace Williams. Elsie, this is my friend, Mr.
Morrison,” said Geraldine with pride.
Elsie was immediately conscious of a quickened interest. The young man
was of a type that appealed strongly to her; dark and tall, with very