"Bring me your key!"
I brought it very quickly, and unlocked Annie's cell with more alacrity than I ever turned key in a lock before.
"O'Brien," said the Deputy to her, "I let you out because your Matron asks me to. Now show your gratitude by your good behavior, and obedience to her."
"I will try, sir."
"Unlock the other one when you please," he said to me, and went out.
O'Brien turned to me.
"I will never give you occasion to have me locked up again, while I am here. I never made the promise before, but I make it now. I have been in solitary ten days and ten nights; I have been carried from there to the hospital, fainted away dead, and my feet so swelled that I could not walk on them. I have been gagged till my jaws were so stiff and swelled that I could not shut my mouth. I have been in the dungeon in the cellar"—
"Stop, Annie! in the name of pity, stop!"
I was sick to loathing of the cruelty she recounted. Was I in one of the prisons of the Inquisition, hearing a description of their tortures?
"It is the truth. And I never made a promise to do any better before."