indignation and terror, fancying herself seized by human arms; but when she found herself only in the power of one of her cousin’s curiosities, she speedily quieted herself and rested in peace, for Caspar always paid a visit to the workshop the last thing before going to bed.  The pressure of the springs that had closed the trap did not hurt her in the least—­she was indeed hardly sensible of it; but when she made the least attempt to stir, the thing showed itself immovably locked, and she had too much confidence in the workmanship of her cousin and Caspar to dream of attempting to open it:  that she knew must be impossible.  The worst that threatened her was that the engine might require some attention before the hour, or perhaps two, which must elapse ere Caspar came would be over, and she did not know what the consequences might be.

As it happened, however, something either in the powder-mill or about the defences detained Caspar far beyond his usual hour for retiring, and the sultriness of the weather having caused him a headache, he represented to himself that, with mistress Dorothy tending the engine, who knew where and would be sure to find him upon the least occasion, there could be no harm in his going to bed without paying his usual precautionary visit to the keep.

So Dorothy sat, and waited in vain.  The last drops of the day trickled down the side of the world, the night filled the crystal globe from its bottom of rock to its cover of blue aether, and the red glow of the furnace was all that lighted the place.  She waited and waited in her mind; but Caspar did not come.  She began to feel miserable.  The furnace fire sank, and the rush of the water grew slower and slower, and ceased.  Caspar did not come.  The fire sank lower and lower, its red eye dimmed, darkened, went out.  Still Caspar did not come.  Faint fears began to gather about poor Dorothy’s heart.  It was clear at last that there she must be all the night long, and who could tell how far into the morning?  It was good the night was warm, but it would be very dreary.  And then to be fixed in one position for so long!  The thought of it grew in misery faster than the thing itself.  The greater torment lies always in the foreboding.  She felt almost as if she were buried alive.  Having their hands tied even, is enough to drive strong men almost crazy.  Nor, firm of heart as she was, did no evils of a more undefined and less resistible character claim a share in her fast-rising apprehensions; she began to discover that she too was assailable by the terror of the night, although she had not hitherto been aware of it, no one knowing what may lie unhatched in his mind, waiting the concurrence of vital conditions.