She could have fallen on her knees in her thankfulness.  ‘No! no!’ she cried eagerly.  ‘Who is it?’

‘It is me—­Olney!’ was the answer.  ’Keep a heart, ma’am!  They are gone to bed.  You are quite safe.’

‘Can you let me out?’ Julia cried.  ‘Oh, let me out!’

‘Let you out?’

‘Yes, yes!  Let me out?  Please let me out.’

‘God forbid, ma’am!’ was the horrified answer.  ’He’d kill me.  And he has the key.  But—­’

‘Yes? yes?’

’Keep your heart up, ma’am, for Jarvey’ll not see you hurt; nor will I. You may sleep easy.  And good-night!’

She stole away before Julia could answer; but she left comfort.  In a glow of thankfulness the girl pushed a chair against the door, and, wrapping herself for warmth in the folds of the shabby curtains, lay down on the window seat.  She was willing to sleep now, but the agitation of her thoughts, the whirl of fear and hope that prevailed in them, as she went again and again over the old ground, kept her long awake.  The moon had risen and run its course, decking the old garden with a solemn beauty as of death, and was beginning to retreat before the dawn, when Julia slept at last.

When she awoke it was broad daylight.  A moment she gazed upwards, wondering where she was; the next a harsh grating sound, and the echo of a mocking laugh brought her to her feet in a panic of remembrance.

The key was still turning in the lock—­she saw it move, saw it withdrawn; but the room was empty.  And while she stood staring and listening heavy footsteps retired along the passage.  The chair which she had set against the door had been pushed back, and milk and bread stood on the floor beside it.

She drew a deep breath; he had been there.  But her worst terrors had passed with the night.  The sun was shining, filling her with scorn of her gaoler.  She panted to be face to face with him, that she might cover him with ridicule, overwhelm him with the shafts of her woman’s wit, and show him how little she feared and how greatly she despised him.

But he did not appear; the hours passed slowly, and with the afternoon came a clouded sky, and weariness and reaction of spirits; fatigue of body, and something like illness; and on that a great terror.  If they drugged her in her food?  The thought was like a knife in the girl’s heart, and while she still writhed on it, her ear caught the creak of a board in the passage, and a furtive tread that came, and softly went again, and once more returned.  She stood, her heart beating; and fancied she heard the sound of breathing on the other side of the door.  Then her eye alighted on a something white at the foot of the door, that had not been there a minute earlier.  It was a tiny note.  While she gazed at it the footsteps stole away again.

She pounced on the note and opened it, thinking it might be from Mrs. Olney.  But the opening lines smacked of other modes of speech than hers; and though Julia had no experience of Mr. Thomasson’s epistolary style, she felt no surprise when she found the initials F.T. appended to the message.