The expression of her face at that time seemed to tell simply of one who endured life till death might come.
'Escape from this—oh, how to escape!' she wailed, as she wrung her slender hands in bitter helplessness.
Her windows were always fastened beyond her power of opening them, and the water of the Fleet was fully twenty feet below them, so escape in that direction was not to be thought of.
The evening of the fourth day of her intolerable captivity was drawing to a close when Ellinor made a discovery by the merest chance.
That which appeared to be the back of the antique wardrobe in her room proved in reality to be a door, though partially concealed by garments hung on pegs screwed into it.
A door! Whither did it lead? To ask Lenchen would at once excite suspicion, and perhaps deprive her of the power of utilising it if possible. This discovery excited her alarm more than hope or curiosity, for though she was able as yet to secure her chamber-door on the inside at night—or was permitted to do so—her privacy might, she naturally thought, be violated at any time by this new and unexpected avenue, which she resolved to explore.
The door-handle yielded to her touch; it fell backward, and she found a comfortable, but narrow, old oak stair, the steps of which were mouldy, damp, and worm-eaten. It descended at an angle, within the thickness of the solid wall, some forty steps or so, and ended in an opening that was without any door, and immediately overhung the canal. Rusty hinges in the jambs showed that a door had once closed this entrance to the house, but it had probably fallen to pieces and never been replaced.
In short, it was simply one of the many back entrances from the water, of which the mercantile community in many parts of Hamburg still avail themselves, and showed that at one time, and before that of its declension, the house of Herr Wyburg had been the residence of some wealthy trader, whose boats had been rowed or pulled up to his private door from the Brandenburger Hafen and under the Scharstein Bridge.
Here was a source of escape suddenly found, and of which she might avail herself; but the only boats she had ever seen pass that way were those of the Vierlander vegetable dealers, and how was she to make known to these people her peril and her wishes?
Frau Wyburg had said to her more than once, 'When in tribulation there is nothing like keeping your mind easy and trusting in the unexpected.'