“The man detained me no longer; he hastened to lead the way. We passed through various long passages; sometimes the low moan of pain and weakness came upon my ear--sometimes the confused murmur of the idiot’s drivelling soliloquy. From one passage, at right angles with the one through which we proceeded, came a fierce and thrilling shriek; it sunk at once into silence--perhaps by the lash! “We were now in a different department of the building--all was silence--hushed deep--breathless: this seemed to me more awful than the terrible sounds I had just heard. My guide went slowly on, sometimes breaking the stillness of the dim gallery by the jingle of his keys--sometimes by a muttered panegyric on himself and his humanity. I neither heeded nor answered him. “We read in the annals of the Inquisition, of every limb, nerve, sinew of the victim, being so nicely and accurately strained to their utmost, that the frame would not bear the additional screwing of a single hair breadth. Such seemed my state. We came to a small door, at the right hand; it was the last but one in the passage. We paused before it. ‘Stop,’ said I, ‘for one moment:’ and I was so faint and sick at heart, that I leaned against the wall to recover myself, before I let him open the door: when he did, it was a greater relief than I can express, to see that all was utterly dark. ‘Wait, Sir,’ said the guide, as he entered; and a sullen noise told me that he was unbarring the heavy shutter. “Slowly the grey cold light of the morning broke in: a dark figure was stretched upon a wretched bed, at the far end of the room. She raised herself at the sound. She turned her face towards me; I did not fall, nor faint, nor shriek; I stood motionless, as if fixed into stone; and yet it was Gertrude upon whom I gazed! Oh, Heaven! who but myself could have recognized her? Her cheek was as the cheek of the dead--the hueless skin clung to the bone--the eye was dull and glassy for one moment, the next it became terribly and preternaturally bright--but not with the ray of intellect, or consciousness, or recognition. She looked long and hard at me; a voice, hollow and broken, but which still penetrated my heart, came forth through the wan lips, that scarcely moved with the exertion. ‘I am very cold,’ it said--‘but if I complain, you will beat me.’ She fell down again upon the bed, and hid her face. “My guide, who was leaning carelessly by the window, turned to me with a sort of smirk--‘This is her way, Sir,’ he said; ‘her madness is of a very singular description: we have not, as yet, been able to discover how far it extends; sometimes she seems conscious of the past, sometimes utterly oblivious of every thing: for days she is perfectly silent, or, at least, says nothing more than you have just heard; but, at times, she raves so violently, that--that--but I never use force where it can be helped.’