One night, he was disturbed by the horrible and heartrending shrieks of the female prisoner, who had contrived to gain access to his cell. There was something about this mysterious person that inspired him with unaccountable dread; and though he was satisfied she was a being of this world, the conviction did not serve to lessen his fears. After making the dungeon ring with her cries for some time, she became silent, and as he heard no sound and could distinguish nothing, he concluded she must have departed. Just then the unlocking of a distant door and a gleam of sickly light on the walls of the stone passage announced the approach of Nightgall, and the next moment he entered the cell. The light fell upon a crouching female figure in one corner. The jailor started; and his angry ejaculations caused the poor creature to raise her head.
Cholmondeley had never beheld anything so ghastly as her countenance, and he half doubted whether he did not look upon a tenant of the grave. Her eyes were sunken and lustreless; her cheeks thin and rigid, and covered with skin of that deadly paleness which is seen in plants deprived of light; her flesh shrunken to the bone, and her hands like those of a skeleton. But in spite of all this emaciation, there was something in her features that seemed to denote that she had once been beautiful, and her condition in life exalted. The terror she exhibited at the approach of the jailor proved the dreadful usage she had experienced. In answer to his savage ejaculations to her to follow him, she flung herself on her knees, and raised her hands in the most piteous supplication. Nothing moved by this, Nightgall was about to seize her and drag her away, when with a piercing scream she darted from him, and took refuge behind Cholmondeley.
“Save me!—save me from him!” she shrieked; “he will kill me.”
“Pshaw!” cried the jailor. “Come with me quietly, Alexia, and you shall have a warmer cell, and better food.”
“I will not go,” she replied. “I will not answer to that name. Give me my rightful title and I will follow you.”
“What is your title?” asked Cholmondeley, eagerly.
“Beware!” interposed Nightgall, raising his hand menacingly. “Beware!”
“Heed him not!” cried Cholmondeley; “he shall not harm you. Tell me how you are called?”
“I have forgotten,” replied the terrified woman, evasively. “I had another name once. But I am called Alexia now.”
“What has become of your child?” asked Cholmondeley.