Read "The Stronger Influence" by Ethel Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
These late hours, and the fact that he had taken to sleeping in the dressing-room from a desire not to disturb her, excited Esme's worst apprehensions. She fell into the habit of lying awake and listening for him: she could not rest while she knew that he was downstairs. The old sickening sensation of terror, which had seized her at the Zuurberg when she listened to him stumbling along the stoep on his way to his room, gripped her anew each time that she heard him mount the stairs and go unsteadily to the dressing-room in his stockinged feet.
The horror of it was as a nightmare which tormented her unceasingly. She was afraid of him when he had been drinking heavily; not afraid that he would do her any physical injury; but the look in his eyes terrified her; it seemed to alter him, to make him a stranger almost. There were times when he passed her on the stairs or landing with wide-opened eyes which appeared not to notice her presence: the sight of him thus made her knees shake under her and blanched her face. It was like meeting a sleep-walker, only more horrible.