"No—you shall come," returned Tidkins, brutally: "I am sick of this reasoning, and must bring you to the point at once."
"Let me go—and I swear to follow whither you may choose to lead," said Adeline.
"Well—now I release you on that condition," was the reply: and the horrible man withdrew his arm and the pistol simultaneously.
But still keeping the weapon levelled at the wretched lady, and taking a candle in his left hand, he made a sign for her to accompany him.
She was now reduced to that state of physical nervousness and mental bewilderment, that she obeyed mechanically, without attempting to remonstrate—without even remembering to ask whither they were going.
They left the room, and proceeded along the passage towards the southern extremity of the building,—Adeline walking on one side of the corridor, and Tidkins on the other—the latter still keeping the pistol levelled to over-awe the miserable woman.
But she saw it not: she went on, because she mechanically obeyed one in whose power she felt herself to be, and whose loathsome contiguity she trembled to dare again.
At length they stopped at a door: and then Adeline's memory seemed to recover all its powers—her ideas instantly appeared to concentrate themselves in one focus.
"Oh! no—not here! not here!" she said, with a cold shudder, as she suddenly awoke as it were from a confused dream, and recognised the door of her boudoir—the boudoir!
"Then give me a thousand pounds—and I will leave the house this minute," returned Tidkins.