They ascended the stairs into another dark and draughty hall, flanked on either side by a couple of doors.

One of these the old dame opened, and quite a new picture burst on Mollie's sight.
The apartment was not at all like the mysterious padded room of former experience; the four bare walls were plastered and blankly bare; the boarded floor was strewn with rags; the two big square windows were draped with paper-blinds.

A huge fire of logs, such as Mollie had never beheld in her life before, roared gloriously in the old-fashioned fire-place, and lighted the room with a lurid glow.

A four-post bedstead, the bed covered with a gaudy patch-work or counterpane, stood in one corner, a table with a white cloth stood in another, a chest of drawers in a third, and the door by which they entered in the fourth.
This was Mollie's new prison.
"Elegant simplicity," observed the man, leading her in; "but we will do our best to make you comfortable during your stay.

It need not be long--you know it depends on yourself, Mollie." "On myself ?" She turned her pale face and angry, eyes upon him.
"I am your husband by a secret marriage, you know.