However, it was quite impossible to resort again to this extreme
measure. John Martin had the most agonizing attacks of lumbago. Gladys
had neuralgia, and Miss Templeton--a slight touch of pleurisy.
When Gladys reached the Imperial that evening, she found that the
staff had been battling with cockroaches all day, and that they had at
last succeeded in getting rid of them with a fumigation mixture of
camphor, cocculus, sulphur, bezonia and assafoetida--suggested to them
by a Hindoo student.
For the next week not a beetle was to be seen at the theatre nor at
the Cottage; and Gladys was beginning to hope that Hamar had ceased
plaguing her (in despair of ever winning her), when the persecutions
suddenly broke out again.
She had been in bed about half an hour, and was falling into a gentle
and much needed sleep, when a tremendous rap at the wall, close to her
head, awoke her with a start, and set her heart pulsating violently.
Thinking it must be some one on the landing, she got up and lit a
candle. There was no one there. The moment she got into bed again, the
rapping was repeated, and it continued, at intervals, all night. This
went on for a week, during which time Gladys was never once able to
sleep.
A brief respite ensued; but it was abruptly terminated one morning,
when Gladys awoke feeling as if some big insect were attempting to
penetrate her body. Uttering a shriek of terror, she whipped the
clothes from her, and sprang out of bed.
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