I looked, and stood stupefied. It was Dora!
I sprang forward to arrest her progress, but at that instant a frightful blow fell upon the back of my skull, crushing me, and I fell senseless like a log.
How long I remained unconscious, or what events occurred during the oblivion that fell upon me, I have no idea.
My only recollection is that I felt the presence of some person near me, and I heard words uttered. But upon my ears they fell as if spoken so far away as to be indistinguishable. Scenes strangely distorted, sad and humorous, pleasing and horrible, flitted through my mind as I lay dozing, half-conscious, striving to think, but unable even by the dint of greatest effort, to sufficiently collect my senses to reflect with reason.
In this half-dreamy stupor I must have remained a very long time. Hours passed. I lay as one dead—unable to move, unable to think.
Gradually, however, I found my mind growing clearer. Thoughts, that at first were hopelessly mixed, slowly shaped themselves; and I remember trying to recall the startling events that had preceded the cowardly blow dealt me by some unknown hand. Thus, painfully and with the utmost difficulty, I struggled to regain knowledge of things about me.
Opening my eyes at last, I found myself in darkness, save for a glimmer of faint grey light that crept in over the top of what I imagined to be heavy closely-barred shutters. It was about ten o’clock at night when I had been struck down; it was now already morning. Stretching forth my cold, nerveless fingers, I groped to feel my surroundings on either side, discovering myself still lying on the floor, but whereas the drawing-room in which I had encountered Dora had been well-carpeted, this room seemed bare, for I was lying upon cold flags. With a sudden movement I put out my hands and raised my head, in an endeavour to regain my feet. But this action brought vividly to my mind that the injury I had received was serious.
A pain shot through my head. So excruciating was it that I fainted.
During the hours that followed all was again blank. When I reopened my hot fevered eyes I saw that the streak of dawn—the one welcome ray that inspired hope within me—was now a thin golden bar of sunshine, that gave just sufficient light to enable me to distinguish my strange surroundings. Endeavouring to reflect calmly, my eyes were fixed upon the blackened ceiling. At first I wondered what had caused it to become so sooty, and calculated the number of years during which spiders had festooned their dust-laden webs upon it, when suddenly my eyes clearly distinguished that the ceiling was arched—that it was unplastered, and of bare begrimed brick.
Eagerly I looked on either side. The walls also were of bare brick I was in a cellar!