fresh misery to her situation. The prospect before her now was dark
indeed. She was in a prison-house, where her imprisonment seemed
destined to grow closer and closer. There was no reason why Wiggins
should spare her at all. Having so successfully shut her within the
grounds for so long a time, he would now be able to carry out any mode
of confinement which might be desirable to him. She had heard of people
being confined in private mad-houses, through the conspiracy of
relatives who coveted their property. Thus far she had believed these
stories to be wholly imaginary, but now she began to believe them true.
Her own case had shown her the possibility of unjust and illegal
imprisonment, and she had not yet been able to find out any mode of
escape. This place seemed now to be her future prison-house, where her
imprisonment would grow from bad to worse, and where she herself, under
the terrible struggle of feeling to which she would be subject, might
finally sink into a state of madness.

Such a prospect was terrible beyond words. It filled her with horror,
and she regarded her future with the most gloomy forebodings. In the
face of all this she had a sense of the most utter helplessness, and the
disappointments which she had thus far encountered only served to deepen
her dejection.

In the midst of all this there was one hope for her, and one only.

That solitary hope rested altogether on her friend Dudleigh. When he
last left her he had promised to come to her again in six or eight
weeks. This, then, was the only thing left, and to his return she looked
forward incessantly, with the most eager and impatient hope.

To her it now seemed a matter of secondary importance what might be her