believe you mad, if I choose to call for an inquiry. I can make
you appear so. The suspicions expressed in this letter are the
hallucinations and alarms of a moping lunatic. I have defeated your
first attempt, madam; and by the holy God, if ever you make another,
chains, darkness, and the keeper's whip shall be your portion." With
these astounding words he left the room, leaving me almost fainting.

I was now almost reduced to despair; my last cast had failed; I had no
course left but that of escaping secretly from the castle, and placing
myself under the protection of the nearest magistrate. I felt if this
were not done, and speedily, that I should be _murdered_. No one, from
mere description, can have an idea of the unmitigated horror of my
situation; a helpless, weak, inexperienced girl, placed under the
power, and wholly at the mercy of evil men, and feeling that I had it
not in my power to escape for one moment from the malignant influences
under which I was probably doomed to fall; with a consciousness, too,
that if violence, if murder were designed, no human being would be
near to aid me; my dying shriek would be lost in void space.

I had seen Edward but once during his visit, and as I did not meet
him again, I began to think that he must have taken his departure; a
conviction which was to a certain degree satisfactory, as I regarded
his absence as indicating the removal of immediate danger. Emily also
arrived circuitously at the same conclusion, and not without good
grounds, for she managed indirectly to learn that Edward's black horse
had actually been for a day and part of a night in the castle stables,
just at the time of her brother's supposed visit. The horse had gone,
and as she argued, the rider must have departed with it.

This point being so far settled, I felt a little less uncomfortable;