It was locked! Her first thought was relief: she had no longer to decide; her second, that she was a prisoner--till, horror of horrors! the soldiers of the guard came to seek Richard and found her, or stern mistress Watson appeared, grim as one of the Fates; or, perhaps, if Richard had been carried away, until she was compelled by hunger and misery to call aloud for release.

But no! she would rather die.

Now in this case, now in that, her thoughts pursued the horrible possibilities, one or other of which was inevitable, through all the windings of the torture of anticipation, until for a time she must have lost consciousness, for she had no recollection of falling where she found herself--on the heap in the middle of the floor.

The gray heartless dawn had begun to peer in through the dull green glass that closed the one loophole.

It grew and grew, and its growth was the approach of the grinning demon of shame.
The nearer a man can arrive to the knowledge of such feelings as hers is the conviction that he never can comprehend them.