Rising with feeble steps she went to the window, and pulled aside the curtain.
Horrors! the window was barred with great, heavy iron bars!
Some vague, indefinite plan of escape through that window had been forming in her mind. She almost screamed in her despair as she saw the futility of her plan.
"Hateful prison-bars!" said she, angrily, and clenching one in her small hand she shook it with angry violence. To her surprise the rotten wood-work yielded, and the bar fell from its place and remained in her hand. Very cautiously she looked through the aperture just formed.
She saw that she was in an old and weather-beaten house set in the midst of a large garden whose overgrown shrubs and bushes had grown wild and tangled, and over-run the paths. There was not another house within half a mile of this one. She was far out on the suburbs, she comprehended at once.
A noise below startled her from her reconnoissance. Hastily fitting the heavy bar back to its place, she dropped the curtains and tottered back to her seat, assuming an air of indifference and weariness.
The door opened and Harold Colville entered.
"Good-evening, Miss Lawrence," said he, coolly; "I trust you find yourself improving."
Lily vouchsafed him no answer save a look of scorn and contempt.
"Come—come, fair lady," said he, seating himself near her, "have you no kinder greeting for your devoted admirer?"