"Never!" he shouted, hoarsely, with a terrible oath. "Never! I hate Lawrence Ernscliffe—I have an old grudge against him. I will have my revenge on you both. You shall stay here, locked in these four walls, a hated prisoner, as long as you live. Mrs. Bowers shall be your jailer, and here you shall dwell, eating your heart out in abject wretchedness and misery unutterable. Do you like the picture? Au revoir, Mrs. Ernscliffe!"
[CHAPTER XII.]
Queenie heard the key grate in the lock and sprang up, uttering wild shrieks of passion and despair, almost beside herself with the horror of her new situation.
But no response came to her frenzied screams and cries. Perhaps those gilded walls had echoed such wails of agony before, and the hearts of those who heard them had grown callous with long familiarity.
She ran up and down the room like one mad, alternately skrieking and beating upon the locked door, until she fell upon the floor, conquered by sheer exhaustion.
She lay there awhile, then sprang up restlessly again.
"I will endure it no longer," she said, passionately; "I will throw myself down from the window and kill myself!"
Full of that wild, suicidal resolve, she ran to the window and pushed up the sash.
The night was far spent, and that awful darkness that comes just before dawn obscured everything, its blackness intensified by the drizzling rain that still poured steadily down.