Bitter was our grief, but no one heeded our lamentations; our guards attended to nothing but the adventures of the past night, and we collected from their discourse, that the fire had been kindled by a lady confined in the eastern wing of the Castle. Her object, as they supposed, was to find some means of escaping during the confusion, which her rash action had necessarily produced; she had not only failed in her design, but had suffered so severely by springing from a lofty window, and by the wounds which she had received from the fragments of a falling tower, that she was not expected to outlive the night. The Castellan too, in his endeavours to prevent the escape of this prisoner (whose confinement seemed to be a greater object of anxiety to him, even than that of Edith and myself) had met with a fatal accident, and was every moment expected to breathe his last. We desired to see him before his death. With a feeble voice he entreated our pardon for the injustice, with which he had been compelled to treat us; but he called Heaven to witness, that the dreadful oaths which had been exacted from him, had deprived him of the power of acting differently. Yet did he not think it necessary to enjoin our future jailors to treat us with greater lenity; and they, being in all probability fettered by the same oaths with himself, esteemed it their duty to retain us in a captivity no less strict than before. All we could obtain from them was, that we should not again be separated; and also that we should be permitted to visit that unfortunate lady, of whose existence in the Castle we were this day informed for the first time; who had made use of such violent means to obtain her liberty; and who (as our guards assured us) was on the point of paying with her life, for having dared to commit so desperate an action. Curiosity, hope, the fear of finding some beloved acquaintance in this wretched captive, or the desire of giving some alleviation to the sufferings of an expiring partner in affliction, which of these motives induced us to make this melancholy visit, I cannot pretend to decide. When we received the permission to enter her dungeon, we were assured, that we should find nothing that would diminish our own distress, and the event justified the assurance. They conducted us to a wretched pallet, on which lay a female, whose features were totally unknown to us, but whose appearance excited in us the deepest sentiments of pity; of that painful pity, which knows itself unable to afford relief! On hearing our footsteps she raised with difficulty her half-closed eyes, and with a smile of anguish extended her hand towards us. We exerted ourselves to afford her every little alleviation of pain, which our narrow means could furnish; and in executing these mournful services, our tears sufficiently declared the feelings of our hearts.