The echo of her own voice sounded fearful, in those silent walls. She dared not call again. Her eyes, accustomed to the gloom, began to distinguish the outline of objects. She could see where the long rows of benches stood, and the windows, all except those next the street, grew whiter and whiter, for the ground was covered with snow, and some of it had been drifted against the glass. All at once Helen remembered the _room_, all dressed in white, and she felt the _cold presence_, which had so often congealed her heart. Her dead mother seemed before her, in the horror, yet grandeur, of her last repose. Unable to remain passive in body, with such travail in her soul, she rushed towards the door--finding the way with her groping hands. It was locked. She tried the windows--they were fastened. She shrieked--but there was none to hear. No! there was no escape--no hope. She must stay there the whole long, dark night, if she lived, to see the morning's dawn. With the conviction of the hopelessness of her situation, there arose a feeling, partly despair and partly resignation. She was very cold, for the fire had long been extinguished, and she could not find her cloak to cover her. She was sure she would freeze to death before morning, and Master Hightower, when he came to open the school, would see her lying stiff and frozen on the floor, and be sorry he had been so cruel. Yes! she would freeze, and it was no matter, for no one cared for her; no one thought of coming to look for her. Father, brother, Miss Thusa, Mittie--all had deserted her. Had her mother lived, _she_ would have remembered her little Helen. The young doctor, he who had been so kind and good, who had come to her before in the hour of danger, perhaps he would pity her, if he knew of her being locked up there in loneliness and darkness. Several times she heard sleighs driving along, the bells ringing merrily and loud, and she thought they were going to stop--but they flew swiftly by. She felt as the mariner feels on a desert island, when he spies a distant sail, and tries in vain to arrest the vessel, that glides on, unheeding his signal of distress. "I will say my prayers," she said, "if I have no bed to lie down on. If God ever heard me, He will listen now, for I've nobody but Him to go to."