Guided only by instinct--the instinct of self-preservation--her eyes still straining painfully in that enforced upward gaze, she at last reached the door.
With a strangled sob of relief she knelt up against it and inserted the big iron key, with numbed fingers turning it in the lock.

The heavy door opened, and Nan clung to it with both hands till it had swung back sufficiently to admit her.

Then, from the security of the castle itself, she pushed it to and locked it on the inside, as the old woman at the cottage had bidden her, thrusting the key into the pocket of her sports coat.
She was safe! Around her were the walls of the ancient castle--walls that seemed almost part of the solid rock itself standing betwixt her and that horrible abyss below!.

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