It was with great caution that Gray first visited this place, that he was long in discovering that the signs of decay were more superficial than otherwise, and, inquiring diligently and cautiously concerning it, he heard the character of the deserted house, which induced him mentally to resolve upon making it his next abode, should he be hunted out of his miserable residence in the ruined street at Lambeth. The only risk he considered he ran of discovery was in conveying Ada there by daylight; but, after that, he resolved upon never leaving or approaching his gloomy abode except by night, or early in the morning, when he was quite sure no one was observing him, save upon special occasions, such as his recent visit to Learmont, whom he was anxious to see after the stormy meeting in his former residence. When Ada recovered consciousness, she at first felt all that sensation of relief which comes over any one awakening from a horrible dream; but this feeling of satisfaction lingered but for a few fleeting moments in the breast of the persecuted, betrayed girl. The gloom that surrounded her—the damp air that imparted a chill to her very heart—the dim ray of light that proceeded from a candle, the wick of which showed that it had been some hours unattended, all convinced her that she was a prisoner. With a cry of despair she started to her feet: she clasped her hands, and called on Heaven to protect her, as she hastily glanced round the gloomy place in which she found herself. The dismal echo of her own voice only answered her wild and incoherent appeal. “Oh! Heaven,” she cried, “I shall be murdered here. No one to hear my cries! No one to aid me! I am lost—lost! Oh!—Albert, Albert!” She sank upon the ground, and wept long and bitterly as the thoughts of how foolishly she had allowed herself to be deceived by Gray crowded upon her oppressed mind. “No hope!—No hope!—Now there is no hope!” she cried, bitterly. “Oh! Why was I preserved for this dreadful fate! I thought it hard to endure the cold air from the river, while crouching on the bridge. O God! O God! What would I not give now to be as free beneath the canopy of Heaven as I was then!” After a time the native energy of Ada’s character overcame her first bursts of bitter grief; and raising her head she strove to pierce, with her tear-filled eyes, the dim obscurity by which she was surrounded. “What can this place be?” she asked herself. “Let me recollect. He brought me across swampy fields to a ruined house, and there, at that point, recollection ceases—memory fades away in a confused whirl, none of which are sufficiently distinct for the mind to grasp and reason upon.” She now approached the light, and, carefully trimming it, she held it as high as she could, and, turning slowly round, took a long and anxious survey of as much as she could see of her dungeon, for such she considered it.