"When he and his companions had been there it seemed to me a long, long time, and it was useless for me to shriek for help, I gave myself up for lost, turning my thoughts as well as I could to the next world.
"It was then that the Duke and his men were startled by hearing you open the front door of the house and stumble through the dark passage.
"With horrible curses they fled through the window.
"Then you came, and I had just the strength left to whisper to you to open the safe when I fainted away.
"I have no recollection of what occurred after. Many hours must have elapsed before I regained consciousness, and then I came to myself in an underground room of what I knew after to be a lonely tower on the hills near Bath."
"What, not Cruft's Folly?" I suggested.
"Yes," she replied thoughtfully; "I believe that was the name I afterwards learned was given to the place.
"I was waited on by a German woman, the wife of one of the Duke's followers, a big dark man with a black beard.
"My dress, my bed, and general surroundings were those of a poor country woman.
"But this black-bearded German and his wife were the means of saving me.