“You can answer that question better than I, Miss Garrison.”
“I only know those wretches—the one who disguised himself as my father and the one who tried to be my mother—jostled me till I was half dead and stopped eventually at the doors—O, O, O!” she broke off, in startled tones, dropping her fork. “They—they did not really bring me here—to your house, did they?”
“They were good enough to turn you over to our keeping last night, and we are overjoyed to have you here.”
“Then,” she exclaimed, tragically, rising to her feet, “where are the men who brought me here?” A peculiar and rather mirthless smile passed from one to the other of her companions and it angered her. “I demand an explanation, Lord Saxondale.”
“I can give none, Miss Garrison, upon my soul. It is very far from clear to me. You were brought to my doors last night, and I pledge myself to protect you with my life. No harm shall come to you here, and at the proper time I am sure everything will be made clear to you, and you will be satisfied. Believe me, you are among your dearest friends—”
“Dearest friends!” she cried, bitterly. “You insult me by running away from my wedding, you league yourselves with the fiends who committed the worst outrage that men ever conceived, and now you hold me here a—a prisoner! Yes, a prisoner! I do not forget the words of the maid who attended me; I do not forget the inexplicable presence of my traveling clothes in this house, and I shall never forget that my abductors came direct to your castle, wherever it may be. Do you mean to say that they brought me here without an understanding with you? Oh! I see it all now! You—you perpetrated this outrage!”
“On the contrary, Miss Garrison, I am the meekest and lowliest of English squires, and I am in no way leagued with a band of robbers. Perhaps, if you will wait a little while, Lady Saxondale may throw some light on the mystery that puzzles you. You surely will trust Lady Saxondale.”
“Lady Saxondale did me the honor to command me to give up Prince Ravorelli. I am not married to him and I am here, in her home, a prisoner,” said Dorothy, scornfully. “I do not understand why I am here and I do not know that you are my friends. Everything is so queer, so extraordinary that I don't know how to feel toward you. When you satisfactorily explain it all to me, I may be able to forget the feeling I have for you now and once more regard you as friends. It is quite clear to me that I am not to have the privilege of quitting the castle without your consent; I acknowledge myself a prisoner and await your pleasure. You will find me in the room to which you sent me last night. I cannot sit at your table, feeling that you are not my friends; I should choke with every mouthful.”
No one sought to bar her way from the dining-room. Perhaps no one there felt equal to the task of explaining, on the moment, the intricacies of a very unusual transaction, for no one had quite expected the bolt to fall so sharply. She paced the floor of her room angrily, bewailing the fate that brought her to this fortress among the rocks. Time after time she paused at the lofty windows to look upon the trees, the little river and the white roadbed far below. There was no escape from this isolated pile of stone; she was confined as were Bluebeard's victims in the days of giants and ogres and there were no fairy queens to break down the walls and set her free. Each thought left the deeper certainty that the people in the room below were banded against her. An hour later, Lady Saxondale found her, her flushed face pressed to the window pane that looked down upon the world as if out of the sky.
“I suppose, Lady Saxondale, you are come to assure me again that I am perfectly safe in your castle,” said the prisoner, turning at the sound of her ladyship's voice.