Again she returned to her prison door, and with frantic energy shook it violently, but it was proof against her feeble strength.
In an agony of despair, she cried aloud for assistance; however, naught save the echoes of her own voice gave back an answer.
“Lost! lost! lost!” she cried! “May Heaven defend and guide me in this, my hour of peril!”
The exertions she had made were too much for her delicate and exhausted frame. Tottering to a small couch that stood at the further end of the room, she cast herself upon it, and burying her face in her hands, gave vent to her grief.
Gradually a sense of drowsiness stole over her, and succumbing to nature’s wants, she soon was lost in slumber. How long she remained thus, she knew not, when she was awakened by the creaking of her prison door as some person entered.
Remaining silent, she listened. The footsteps approached the middle of the apartment, then stopped. She started in alarm from her reclining posture and confronted her silent visitor.
He was a tall and stately personage, with an authoritative and commanding mien. His face was carefully concealed in the folds of an ample cloak that fell gracefully from his shoulders.
“Why this intrusion, sir?”
“No intrusion, fair lady, only a friendly visit.”
At the sound of the stranger’s voice Imogene involuntarily drew back.