Carol had recovered from the shock eventually, having developed even at the tender age of eighteen the resiliency that had made her a success 'in business in later years. But her father had seemed totally unable to cope with his lack of a partner. He had always been deeply attached to his wife, and Sally's loss had nearly ruined him. His life had changed abruptly. Instead of the strong-willed and protective parent he had once been, Carol had found a weak, shattered excuse for a man.

Carol's disturbed father had quit his job and begun to hit the bars frequently, sometimes staying out all night or coming home with some drunken whore. On such occasions Carol had been whisked away in the night by her new aunt, a loving and protective woman whose memory Carol still cherished. Her Aunt Arlene had begun to stay at

the house on an almost permanent basis to care for Carol since her father was neither capable to do so nor so inclined. Carol had been hurt deeply by her father's actions on his drunken nights. She still remembered the sluts he had brought home with him and the vulgar way in which he pawed them and engaged in the most obscene conversations with them in front of his eighteen-year-old daughter.

Carol's aunt had eventually been forced to discus with her father the possibility of letting Carol live with her on a permanent basis. Her father had refused to allow it. Carol had detected even then an atmosphere of impending disaster in the house. Her aunt seemed to be afraid. of something all the time, as if she couldn't bear to let her out of her sight for a minute. Carol had also noticed a strange attitude in her father, an attitude she hadn't understood at the time. He had seemed to stare at her in the most peculiar way. His eyes had become glassy and vacant, as if he were looking at her with some evil intent. And whenever Carol had made some involuntary shrinking movement as a result of his strange stare, he had become violent in the extreme, sometimes throwing things. Carol began to feel that he hated bet