[CHAPTER XI.]
Late in the evening she awoke, feeling rested and refreshed by her long sleep. Her headache was quite gone, and Haidee found her sitting in the arm-chair when she came in with supper.
She drank a cup of tea, ate a few mouthfuls of food, and declared herself much better. Old Haidee, however, brought in her knitting and pertinaciously sat out the evening with her, with the intention, no doubt, of listening for sounds from below and marking their effect on her captive. But no sound, no groans, broke the stillness. Fanny Colville, in the new hope that had dawned upon her, had refrained all day from the groans and cries that usually gave vent to her despair. She was impatiently waiting for the return of her visitor of the night before.
Haidee had not visited the poor chained captive since the night she had incarcerated Lily in her new lodging. In fact, there was no entrance to the dungeon except through the trap-door in this room. Haidee had taken her a week's rations that night, and scowlingly bade her to abstain from her noise or it would be worse for her. She now concluded that the captive had obeyed her mandate, or that death had at last removed her out of her power. It was with a feeling of relief at the last thought that she left Lily's room, telling her with a malicious grin that old Nero was loose in the garden as usual.
It was almost midnight before Lily ventured to seek poor Fanny Colville again. Long before she descended the stairs she could hear the sound of the rusty chain as the poor woman tossed restlessly on her bed of pain. Her wild eyes lighted glaringly at the young girl's entrance.
"I thought you were not coming," she said pathetically.
"I dared not come earlier," Lily answered, relating the cause of her detention.
"Old Haidee is a fiend," said Fanny, briefly and comprehensively.