Jack's mortification was extreme. His self-love was severely wounded by the thought that a woman had got the better of him, and he resolved, if he ever got out, that he would make Mrs. Hardwick suffer, he didn't quite know how, for the manner in which she had treated him.
Time passed. Every hour seemed to poor Jack to contain at least double the number of minutes which are usually reckoned to that division of time. Moreover, not having eaten for several hours, he was getting hungry.
A horrible suspicion flashed across his mind. “The wretches can't mean to starve me, can they?” he asked himself, while, despite his constitutional courage, he could not help shuddering at the idea.
He was unexpectedly answered by the sliding of a little door in the wall, and the appearance of the old man whose interview with Peg has been referred to.
“Are you getting hungry, my dear sir?” he inquired, with a disagreeable smile upon his features.
“Why am I confined here?” demanded Jack, in a tone of irritation.
“Why are you confined?” repeated his interlocutor. “Really, one would think you did not find your quarters comfortable.”
“I am so far from finding them comfortable that I insist upon leaving them immediately,” returned Jack.
“Then all you have got to do is to walk through that door.
“It is locked; I can't open it.”