Perhaps this is an unfrequented staircase. One might be locked up here, and remain here, for anything that the old woman, or her husband, would know about it.
If one was locked away here, or anywhere, for how long would it remain a secret?
When one has been absent from town for instance, for months, and then returns, nobody knows whether you've been in your own room all the time, or in Kamschatka. They say, “Hallo! how d'ye do? How are you? Where have you been this age?” They've never inquired. They've got on very well without you. Important matters, too, which “absolutely demand your presence,” as the letter says, which you find on your table six months afterwards, settle themselves without your interference.
The story of the Mistletoe Bough, where a young lady hides herself in an oak chest, and is never heard of for years (in fact never at all until her bones were found with her dress and wreath,) is not so very improbable.
Suppose the old woman forgot this staircase, suppose my party went off thinking that I was playing them some trick; supposing they stick to that belief for four days, what should I do? . . . I don't know. I could howl, and shout. That's all.
What chance of being discovered have I, except by a tradesman wanting his quarter's account settled very badly and being determined upon hunting me up wherever I was.
A door at last! And light and fresh air through the chinks. It opens easily, and I am on the leads of the roof.
With a
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
