Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 194: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

196 THE METAL MONSTER and shy and soft with love. - “Dick!” she whispered, and held soft arms out to him. The cloak fell from her. He swung her up. Their lips met. _ | | Upon them, embraced, the wakening eyes of Ventnor dwelt; they filled with relief and joy, nor was there lacking in them a certain amuse- ment. She drew from Drake’s.arms, pushed him from her, stood for a mo- ment shakily, with covered eyes. “Ruth,” called Ventnor ‘softly. an “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Martin—I forgot—” She ran to him, held him tight, face hidden in his breast. His hand rested on the clustering brown curls, tenderly. | “Martin.” She raised her face to him. “Martin, it’s gone! ?’m—me again! All me! What happened? Where’s Norhalar” I started. Did she not know? Of course, lying bound as.she had in the vanished veils, she could have seen nothing of the stupendous trag- ‘edy enacted beyond them—but had not Ventnor said that possessed by the inexplicable obsession evoked by the weird woman Ruth had seen with her eyes, thought with’ her mind? | And had there not been evidence that in her body had been echoed the torments of Norhala’s? Had she forgotten? I started to speak—was checked by Ventnor’s swift, warning glance. “She’s—over in the Pit,” he answered her quietly. “But do you re- member nothing, little sister?” a | “There’s something in my mind that’s been rubbed out,” she replied. “I remember the City. of Cherkis—and your torture, Martin—and my torture—” Her face whitened; Ventnor’s brow contracted anxiously. I knew for what he watched—but Ruth’s shamed face was all human: on it was no shadow nor trace of that alien soul which so few hours since had threatened us. . “Yes,”’ she nodded, “I remember that. And I remember. how Norhala repaid them. I remember that I was glad, fiercely glad, and then I was tired—so tired. And then—I come to the rubbed-out place,” she ended perplexedly. Deliberately, almost banally had I not realized his purpose, he changed the subject. He held her from him at arm’s length. “Ruth!” he exclaimed, half mockingly, half reprovingly. “Don’t you think your morning negligee is just a little scanty even for this God- forsaken corner of the earth?” | , Lips parted in sheer astonishment, she looked at him. Then her eyes dropped to her bare feet, her dimpled knees. She clasped. her -arms across her breasts; rosy red turned all her fair skin. | GOGO .S (GO)