“What is it?” she asked.
“Your dinner, Miss.”
“Take it away,” she said. She would not eat. She would starve herself—starve herself to death. She could do that—and then there would have to be explanations. The body of a young woman starved to death would be something to arouse unpleasant curiosity. Well, she would provide the body.... But she became calmer. Life was not alluring, but what good could her death bring? Besides, she was helpless, and there were ways of forcing one to eat.... She considered the indignity of it, of being tied down by servants and forcibly fed.... No, when breakfast came she would eat....
Later she undressed and went to bed, but she could not sleep. She could not endure that silent darkness, so she got up and put on a gown and crouched in the corner of her window-seat. Outside she could see the black figure of a man pacing up and down....
She was cooler now, almost calm—with the numb calmness of despair. She was a chip caught in the undertow of monstrous events, drawn under, carried into awful depths. She could see no future. For her life was at an end; she could not look past to-morrow. The undertow had drawn her down into the deep places of an ocean of horrors which submerged the earth, and she could never hope again to reach the surface.... She was not frightened, she was horrified and hopeless—and very lonely.... She moved across the room to her dressing-table and took in her hands her mother’s picture, peering into that calm, dignified face, into those remembered eyes, and striving with frantic eagerness to read some message there.... There was no message.
Once more she crouched on the window-seat and propped the photograph on her knees—and there she fell asleep.
She did not deny her breakfast in the morning, nor did she refuse to eat at noon.... Somehow she did not think about escape, did not care to escape. She was better there, shut away from the world. It was peace of a kind. If she escaped, what would she do with liberty? She did not know. But one thing she did know—she would not inform upon her father. She could not. No hatred, no love of country, could force her to do that thing and bring down upon herself that indelible disgrace—to be looked at with sidewise glances, to be pointed at all the remaining days of her life as the daughter of a spy, a traitor....
It was mid-afternoon when the knock of the serving-man aroused her. She knew his knock already, for there was something stealthy, furtive about it.
“Yes,” she said.
“A gentleman to see you, Miss.” She heard him unlocking the outer fastenings of the door.