Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/25

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III.

That night Olga Fullerton could not sleep. She lay and tossed upon her pillow in an agony of wakefulness, tortured by thoughts which she simply could not put from her. Her head throbbed dully and she felt as though her body were being slowly consumed by an inward fire. What should she do? A thousand times she asked herself this question, but could find no solution. The night seemed to bear down upon her with a fatalistic pressure. She felt as though she were in the grip of hopeless things. As she lay there, tortured by a mental anguish which she could scarcely bear, the words Jerold Wharton had used on that never-to-be-forgotten night at the Waddington's recurred to her as though the very blackness were shouting them in her ears: "You can't overcome Destiny, but you can change it."

"Poor boy," she whispered softly, "one can't do either, but he did not know."

And then she rose from her bed and stole to the window. Softly she lifted the shade, flooding the room with a glorious wave of silvery moonlight. For a moment she stood gazing at the surrounding peaceful country in silence. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted dismally. She shivered slightly. On the very outskirts of a great metropolis she felt very

The Actress
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