The chaplain’s countenance was indicative of the pleasure he felt at listening to the foregoing observations.
“She is in an excellent frame of mind, and feels her position most acutely, I am sure of that,” said he.
“She does, poor dear, and everyone is sorry for her,” cried the canting old crone, who, as the reader may suppose, had been well bribed by the prisoner in cell No. 43.
Miss Stanbridge had been playing her cards pretty well, all things considered. Bribes would not do with the prison chaplain, but she held him in bondage by other means.
Of this she was perfectly convinced, and the sequel proved that she was not far out in her reckoning.
She began to reflect upon her projects, which were still vague and unsettled.
At present they were like dark shadows, which passed backwards and forwards, but which she could not grasp or connect.
She possessed, or supposed she did so, a key to liberty, but she was wandering in the dark, for she had not yet found the door.
She resolved to make him tell her his history. Thus she might obtain a clue to the labyrinth in which she was lost. Thus she might find a fulcrum, without which the most powerful lever is useless.
William Leverall was by this time fairly in the toils of the huntress, albeit she did not realise this herself; but he was so, without perhaps knowing it.