Chapter 22 - Page 2

into the shrubs and groveled in the earth. It was the same
kind of passion--the shaken and heart-riven woe of a creature who
has trusted and hoped joyously and has been forever betrayed. The
face and eyes had been so kind. The voice so friendly! Oh, how
could even the wickedest girl in the world have doubted their
sincerity. Unfortunately--or fortunately--she knew nothing whatever
of the mental processes of the wicked girls of the world, which
was why she lay broken to pieces, sobbing--sobbing, not at the
moment because she was a trapped thing, but because Lady Etynge
had a face in whose gentleness her heart had trusted and rejoiced.

When she sat upright again, her own face, as she lifted it, would
have struck a perceptive onlooker as being, as it were, the face
of another girl. It was tear-stained and wild, but this was not the
cause of its change. The soft, bird eyes were different--suddenly,
amazingly older than they had been when she had believed in Helene.

She had no experience which could reveal to her in a moment the
monstrousness of her danger, but all she had ever read, or vaguely
gathered, of law breakers and marauders of society, collected
itself into an advancing tidal wave of horror.

She rose and went to the window and tried to open it, but it was
not intended to open. The decorative panes were of small size
and of thick glass. Her first startled impression that the white
framework seemed to be a painted metal was apparently founded on
fact. A strong person might have bent it with a hammer, but he
could not have broken it. She examined the windows in the other
rooms and they were of the same structure.

"They are made like that," she said to herself stonily, "to prevent
people from getting OUT."

She stood at the front one and looked down into the broad, stately
"Place." It was a long way to look down, and, even if the window
could be opened, one's voice would not be heard. The street
lamps were lighted and a few people were to be seen walking past
unhurriedly.

"In the big house almost opposite they are going to give a party.
There is a red carpet rolled out. Carriages are beginning to drive
up. And here on the top floor, there is a girl locked up--And they
don't know!"

She said it aloud, and her voice sounded as though it were not her
own. It was a dreadful voice, and, as she heard it, panic seized
her.

Nobody knew--nobody! Her mother never either knew or cared where
she was, but Dowie and Mademoiselle always knew. They would be
terrified. Fraulein Hirsch had, perhaps, been told that her pupil
had taken a cab and gone home and she would return to her lodgings
thinking she was safe.