The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

by Mrs. George Corbett

Still I did not, for some time, realize that my isolation and detention were to be of a prolonged nature. But when more than an hour passed away, and I had listened to the gradual dying out of all sounds in the outer room, I was seized by a species of panic. Was it possible that I had really brought danger upon the head of Sergius, and that he had already paid the penalty for my rashness?

I had seen with what little compunction the presumed spy had been dispatched, and my despairing fancy pictured my dear one already weltering in his blood, while I would perhaps be left to die in this cell of cold and starvation. There was a little light available for me, though not within my reach. It shone through an elevated grating which communicated with the larger apartment, and after a time this circumstance afforded me a little hope.

I concluded that, though the meeting was probably over, the place could not be entirely deserted. Otherwise the lights, feeble as they were, would most likely be extinguished. Then a new horror seized me. How many murders might have been committed on these premises! And how many corpses might be buried within a few yards of me!

I am not superstitious, in the general acceptation of the term. But I always had a horror of the near presence of death, and even the most strong-minded among those who may become acquainted with my history will admit that my circumstances and surroundings were uncanny enough to raise the hair of a much less nervous individual than myself.

My watch told me that I had been immured in this underground room for two hours, and I was feeling faint and sick with hunger; for it was now verging on dawn, and I had had very little food all the previous day, being too much engrossed in watching for Sergius to attend properly to my own bodily needs. Sleep refused me its refreshing aid, though I would gladly have welcomed the temporary oblivion of my surroundings which it might have given me.

After a time I fell into a species of semi-stupor, from which I was roused by the entrance of Sergius into my prison.

I am not sure that coherency of thought was not banished from me even after my husband had pressed wine and food upon my acceptance. I know now that I mechanically availed myself of the refreshment brought to me, but I cannot recall what transpired for a while, until a flood of tears relieved my brain from the pressure which the strength of my emotions exercised upon it.

Then I was able to comprehend all that Sergius had to tell me, and to realize how very nearly I had compassed his ruin, though I did not know until afterward what a battle he had had with the sterner members of the Society, whose motto was “Death to everything through which our plans may risk betrayal.”

Briefly, the position was this.

Sergius had been strictly cross-examined concerning me, and had been able to convince his interrogators that I was really his wife. They were also satisfied as to my fidelity and attachment to him. But they declined to trust my discretion at a time when a word might betray their plans, and ruin their hopes of revolutionizing the country. It was therefore decreed that I was to be kept a close prisoner until such time as Sergius should have fulfilled the obligations that the Society demanded of him.