And then all was silent.

Picture if you can my state of mind as I crept back into my bed and
lay down again, the precious note in my hand. I was trembling with
happiness: Lucy knew of my presence, and had written to me. And yet
I was doomed to lie in a tantalizing impatience until the dawn
should give me leave to read her message. I had no more sleep that
night, wonderment, conjecture, pleasure, hope, setting up a whirl
in my brain.

As soon as there was the faintest tremor in the darkness I sat up
and, unfolding the paper, sought vainly to decipher it. Never had
time seemed so long to me as I waited for the oncoming of the
beneficent light of day. And at last, lifting the paper almost to
my eyes, I was able to make out the words.

'Twas in French, and I blessed the chance which enabled me to
understand it, and the woman's wit that had prompted Lucy to choose
this disguise. She said she had learned of what had happened
through the gossip of the servants; the man who had heard my name
in the rest house had mentioned it. She told me that she was
virtually a prisoner. She knew not what Vetch intended (she did not
name him, but wrote of him as cet homme mechant), but she was kept
under strict surveillance; her movements were dogged; and though
she had three times endeavored to make her escape along with the
old nurse who had accompanied her from England, she had always been
prevented, and those who had assisted her had been terribly
punished. Uncle Moses, her father's bodyservant, who was devoted to
her, had been whipped almost to death, and she dared make no
further attempt, for the sake of the poor black people.