“For a long time I sat like some stupid bewildered creature, going over these words again and again, as if I had no power to understand them.  It was very long before I could believe that my father meant to shut me up in that room for an indefinite time—­for the rest of my life, perhaps.  But, little by little, I came to believe this, and to feel nothing but a blank despair.  O, Nelly, I dare not dwell upon that time!  I suffered too much.  God has been very merciful to me in sparing me my mind; for there were times when I believe I was quite mad.  I could pray sometimes, but not always.  I have spent whole days in prayer, almost as if I fancied that I could weary out my God with supplications.”

“And Stephen; did you see him?”

“Yes, now and then—­once in several days, in a week perhaps.  He used to come, like the master of a madhouse visiting his patients, to see that I was comfortable, he said.  At first I used to appeal to him to set me free—­kneeling at his feet, promising any sacrifice of my fortune for him or for my father, if they would release me.  But it was no use.  He was as hard as a rock; and at last I felt that it was useless, and used to see him come and go with hopeless apathy.  No, Ellen, there are no words can describe what I suffered.  I appealed to the girl who waited on me daily, but who came only once a-day, and always after dark.  I might as well have appealed to the four walls of my room; the girl was utterly stolid.  She brought me everything I was likely to want from day to day, and gave me ample means of replenishing my fire, and told me that I ought to make myself comfortable.  I had a much better life than any one in the workhouse, she said; and I must be very wicked if I complained.  I believe she really thought I was a harmless madwoman, and that her master had a right to shut me up in that room.  One night, after I had been there for a time that seemed like eternity, my father came——­”

“What!” cried Ellen Whitelaw, “the stranger!  I understand.  That man was your father; he came to see you that night; and as he was leaving you, you gave that dreadful shriek we heard downstairs.  O, if I had known the truth—­if I had only known!”

“You heard me, Ellen?  You were there?” Marian exclaimed, surprised.  She was, as yet, entirely ignorant of Ellen’s marriage, and had been too much bewildered by the suddenness of her escape to wonder how the bailiff’s daughter had happened to be so near at hand in that hour of deadly peril.

“Yes, yes, dear Mrs. Holbrook; I was there, and I did not help you.  But never mind that now; tell me the rest of your story; tell me how your father acted that night.”

“He was with me alone for about ten minutes; he came to give me a last chance, he said.  If I liked to leave my husband for ever, and go to America with him, I might do so; but before he let me out of that place, he must have my solemn oath that I would make no attempt to see my husband; that I would never again communicate with any one I had known up to that time; that I would begin a new life, with him, my father, for my sole protector.  I had had some experience of the result of opposing him, he said, and he now expected to find me reasonable.