"He never attempted the window. He has walked out through the door being left open."
"Never!"
"Money can do more than that, and I rejoice at his freedom."
She moved to the door.
But the gaoler held her back rather roughly.
"Stop you here," he said, rudely; "I shall have to report this to the governor, and you had better remain until the job has been investigated."
And before the startled woman could divine his intention, he swung to the door and shot the bolt.
Then pushing back the trap in the door, he added a few words through the grating.
"You"ll be safer there," said he, "unless you can manage to get out as Mathias did. But the devil himself must have a compact with Mathias!"
"At least leave me the light," she said, imploringly.
"Against orders," was all the answer vouchsafed.
The trap was shut.
The woman was left a prisoner, in total darkness.
There is always something unpleasant in darkness, and this woman was by no means iron-nerved.
No sooner was she alone, than a painful sensation of uneasiness stole over her.
"They can not keep me long here," she kept murmuring to herself; "I have done nothing; I am accused of no offence. The governor will set me at liberty as soon as he knows. Could any thing be more unfortunate?
Mathias was a prisoner, and I was at liberty. Now Mathias is free, and I am a prisoner. Cruel fate to separate us. We are destined to be parted."
The gloom grew oppressive now.
She stood still, listening in painful silence for five minutes together--five minutes that appeared to be as many hours.
A silence so solemn, so death-like, that she could hear the very beating of her heart. This grew unbearable.
She groped her way around the cell to find the bed, and approaching the fireplace, she was suddenly startled by a sound.
A very faint noise, as of something dripping on the flagstones by her feet.
In the tomb-like silence then reigning, the faintest sound caused her to feel uncomfortable.
She listened awhile intently, asking herself what it could mean.
Drip, drip, drip.
It was strange.
When the light was there, she had not noticed it at all.
What could it be then, that was only to be heard in the dark?
Was it fancy?
No.
It was too real.
There was no mistaking it.
If the oppressive gloom of the cell started strange sounds or strange fancies in her head, why should it take such a shape as that?
Why, indeed?
"Would to Heaven they were back with the light," she said. "Will they never come?"
Just then, as though her earnest wish were heard and answered, a faint thin streak of light was shot into the cell through the grated window above.
This was reflected from a chamber in the prison whose window was close by the window of this cell, and where a lamp had just been lighted.
The welcome ray shot straight across the cell where she stood by the fireplace, and she remarked that the dripping did not cease.
Drip, drip, drip!
She looked down.
"I see, I see," she shudderingly exclaimed, "it is raining, and the rain is falling down the chimney. How foolish of me to get alarmed about nothing."
Now the light, we have said, shot across the hearth, and here it was that the drip, drip, drip, fell.
"Same as I thought."
As she muttered this to herself, she stretched forth her hand under the chimney, and the next drop fell upon it. It was not water.
No, imperfect as was the light then, it sufficed to show her that upon her hand was a curiously dark stain.
Raising it nearer to her eyes, she examined it eagerly.
Then she shuddered, and exclaimed in a voice of terror--"Blood!"
Yes, it was blood.
Pen can not describe the terror of that wretched woman upon making this alarming discovery.