"Oh, those dreadful nightmare dreams! How they haunt me! Will not some one wake me, please? Martha, where are you? Come to me at once. Oh, Cissy! oh, mamma!"
Old Jane Crabtree came and stood over her scowlingly, snapping out:
"You an't dreamin', gal; you is wide awake!"
But it took her some little time to assure her captive that this was not a continuation of her terrible nightmare dreams.
When she at last convinced her that this was an awful reality, and boldly told her that Clifford Standish had brought her here in a drugged sleep, the terrible truth rushed over her mind.
"That wine Miss Erroll gave me was drugged! She was in the plot!" she cried, wildly.
The hag nodded sullenly, and Geraldine continued, passionately:
"He will never get my consent to marry him, never!"
And then she fell to pleading with the old woman for her liberty, promising to make her rich if she would only restore her to her friends.
But Jane Crabtree laughed her to scorn, sneering at the idea of Geraldine being able to reward her for her liberty.