An individual, who had alighted from the second cab, hastened to open the door of the first, and assist Ellen to alight.
"You must get down here, Miss," he said, in a dialect and tone which denoted him to be a foreigner.
Ellen saw at a glance that he was a tall elderly man, with a dark olive complexion, piercing black eyes, but by no means an unpleasant expression of countenance. He was dressed in black, and wore a large cloak hanging loosely over his shoulders.
"Get down here!" repeated Ellen. "And why? where am I? who are you? Speak."
"No harm will happen to you, Miss," replied the tall stranger. "A gentleman is waiting in this house to see you."
"A gentleman!" cried Ellen. "Ah! can it be Mr. Greenwood?"
"It is, Miss: you need fear nothing."
Ellen was naturally of a courageous disposition; and the circumstances of her life had tended to strengthen her mind. It instantly struck her that she was in the power of her persecutor's myrmidons, and that resistance against them was calculated to produce effects much less beneficial for her than those which remonstrance and firmness might lead to with their employer.
She accordingly accompanied the tall stranger into the house.
But what was the astonishment of the poor creature when she encountered in the hall the very old hag whom she had known in the court in Goldenlane, and who had originally introduced her to the embraces of Mr. Greenwood!