"Come, Mrs. Noble, and drink your tea while it is still warm," she said, coaxingly. "I know you are tired and hungry. Will you take a bit of this chicken salad and cold sliced ham? 'Twill do you good."
"I have no appetite, thank you," Vera answers, turning her head aside.
"Well, I'll leave the tray with you while I go and bind up master's wounded arm. Mayhap you'll eat by-and-bye," the woman answers kindly as she goes out, carefully locking the door behind her.
Left to herself, Lady Vera draws a long breath of relief, and turning to a window, draws aside the heavy velvet curtain, glancing anxiously out for any possible prospect of release.
Alas! her captor's words proved all too true. The first faint beams of dawn rising palely in the east, show her the wide, dense belt of woodland surrounding the ruined mansion in which she is imprisoned.
The wild, tangled garden beneath the window sends up gusts of rainy perfume to her eager senses. She pushes up the sash and leans out, inhaling the fresh, sweet air, and wondering if it would not be possible to escape through the window from this horrible trap into which her credulity had led her.
Alas! her eager, downward glance shows her that she is in the third story of the house.
She drops the heavy curtain and sinks shivering to a seat, worn and trembling with the terrible experiences of the night. Her thoughts fly to the home from whence she has been so rudely torn.
"Are they frightened? Are they seeking for me, I wonder?" she thinks. "Oh, may God guide them in their search!"
And then she thinks of her lost lover, handsome, manly Philip Lockhart. She knows how heavily the blow will fall on that true, manly, loving heart.