Two or three minutes, which seemed to her terror as ages, elapsed, when the gag and the mantle were gently removed, and the same voice (she still could not see her companion) said in a very mild tone:—
“Do not alarm yourself; there is no cause,—indeed there is not. I would not have adopted this plan had there been any other—any gentler one. But I could not call at your own house—I knew no other where to meet you.
“This was the only course left to me—indeed it was. I made myself acquainted with your movements. Do not blame me, then, for prying into your footsteps. I watched for you all last night—you did not come out. I was in despair. At last I find you. Do not be so terrified: I will not even touch your hand if you do not wish it.”
As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with an energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror—in the darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep—she did not sob—but her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.
His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her for the world were endless.
“Only just see the home I can give you; for two days—for one day. Only just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you wish to leave me, you shall.”
More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and then a low murmur:
“Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!”
And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as he was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses, thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had been thus captured, the carriage stopped.
“Are we here already?” said the man, putting his head out of the window. “Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study.”