She held up her hands imploringly—­poor, caged little starling!

“I am sorry, miss,” Sarah said, and her face showed it; “but indeed—­indeed I can’t!  I daren’t!  I’ve promised, and my master trusts me.  I can’t break my word.”

She was gone as she spoke, locking the door again, and Mollie got up with a heavy sigh.  She had taken off only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before.  Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, with a very rueful face.

“And I was to have been away on my bridal tour by this time,” she thought; “and poor Sir Roger is half mad before this, I know.  Oh, dear! it’s very nice to read about young ladies being carried off in this way, but the reading is much nicer than the reality.  I shall die if they keep me here four-and-twenty hours longer.”

By way of preparing for death, Miss Dane promptly sat down to the table and eat her breakfast with the hearty appetite of youth and good health.

“It’s better than being fed on bread and water, anyhow,” she reflected, as she finished; “but I should greatly prefer the bread and water, if sweetened with freedom.  What on earth shall I do with myself?  If they had only left me a book!”

But they hadn’t, and the long, dull hours wore on—­how long and how dull only prisoners know.  But noon came at last, and with it came Sarah, carrying a second tray.  Mollie was on the watch for the door to open.  She had some vague idea of making a rush for it, but there stood a stalwart man on guard.

“Here is your dinner, Miss Dane.  I hope you liked your breakfast.”

But the sight of the sentinel without had made Mollie sulky, and she turned her back upon the girl with silent contempt.

Sarah departed, and Mollie suffered her dinner to stand and grow cold.  She was too cross to eat, but by and by she awoke to the fact that she was hungry.

“And then it will help to pass the time,” thought the unhappy prisoner, sitting down.  “If I could eat all the time, I shouldn’t so much mind.”

After dinner she coiled herself up in one of the arm-chairs and fell asleep.  She slept long, and awoke refreshed, but what time it was she could not judge; eternal gas-light and silence reigned in her prison.

“Oh, dear, dear! what will become of me if this sort of thing goes on?” cried Mollie, aloud, starting up and wringing her hands.  “I shall go stark, staring mad!  Oh, what crime did my father and mother ever commit, that their sin should be visited upon me like this?  I will stab myself with the carving-knife to-morrow, after dinner, if this keeps on!”

Mollie paced up and down like a bedlamite, sobbing and scolding to herself, and quite broken down with one day’s imprisonment.

“I thought I could stand it—­I thought I could defy him; I had no idea being imprisoned was so awful.  I wish I could die and make an end of it!  I’d starve myself to death, only I get so dreadful hungry, and I daren’t cut my throat, because the sight of blood makes me sick, and I know it must hurt.  Oh, Mollie Dane, you miserable little wretch!  I wish you had never been born!”