She had thought it all out a hundred times since she had discovered
that the baby which Anderssen had placed in her arms that night upon
the Kincaid was not her own, and it had been a constant and gnawing
source of happiness to her to dream the whole fantasy through in
its every detail.
No, the Russian must never know that this was not her baby. She
realized that her position was hopeless--with Anderssen and her
husband dead there was no one in all the world with a desire to
succour her who knew where she might be found.
Rokoff's threat, she realized, was no idle one. That he would
do, or attempt to do, all that he had promised, she was perfectly
sure; but at the worst it meant but a little earlier release from
the hideous anguish that she had been enduring. She must find some
way to take her own life before the Russian could harm her further.
Just now she wanted time--time to think and prepare herself for the
end. She felt that she could not take the last, awful step until
she had exhausted every possibility of escape. She did not care
to live unless she might find her way back to her own child, but
slight as such a hope appeared she would not admit its impossibility
until the last moment had come, and she faced the fearful reality
of choosing between the final alternatives--Nikolas Rokoff on one
hand and self-destruction upon the other.
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