For some time the girl called Jenny stood before her father in silence, with her head bent, and her face in shadow; then she lifted her head suddenly, and looked at him piteously. "The other!" she murmured; "the other! I remember what happened to him." "Come, drop that!" cried Milsom, savagely; "do you think I'm going to stand your mad talk? Get to bed, and go to sleep. And the sounder you sleep the better, unless you want to sleep uncommonly sound for the future, my lady." The ruffian seized his daughter by the arm, and half pushed, half flung her into a room, the door of which stood open. It was the dreary room which she called her own. Milsom shut the door upon her, and locked it with a key which he took from his pocket--a key which locked every door in the house. "And now, I flatter myself, you're safe, my pretty singing-bird," he muttered. He went down stairs, and returned to his guest, who had been pressed to eat and drink by Dennis Wayman, and who had yielded good-naturedly to that gentleman's hospitable attentions. * * * * * Alone in her room, Jenny Milsom opened the window, and sat looking out into the inky darkness of the night, and listening to the voices of the three men in the room below. The voices sounded very distinctly in that dilapidated old house. Every now and then a hearty shout of laughter seemed to shake the crazy rafters; but presently the revellers grew silent. Jenny knew they were busy with the cards. "Yes, yes," she murmured; "it all happens as it happened that night--first the loud voices and laughter; then the silence; then--Great Heaven! will the end be like the end of that night?" She clasped her hands in silent agony, and sank in a crouching position by the open window, with her head lying on the sill. For hours this wretched girl sat upon the floor in the same attitude, with the cold wind blowing in upon her. All seemed tranquil in the room below. The voices sounded now and then, subdued and cautious, and there were no more outbursts of jovial laughter. A dim, gray streak glimmered faint and low in the east--the first pale flicker of dawn. The girl raised her weary eyes towards that chill gray light. "Oh! if this night were only ended!" she murmured: "if it were only ended without harm!" The words were still upon her lips, when the voices sounded loud and harsh from the room below. The girl started to her feet, white and trembling. Louder with every moment grew those angry voices. Then came a struggle; some article of furniture fell with a crash; there was the sound of shivered glass, and then a dull heavy noise, which echoed through the house, and shook the weather-beaten wooden walls to their foundations. After the fall there came the sound of one loud groan, and then subdued murmurs, cautious whispers. The window of Jenny Milsom's room looked towards the road. From that window she could see nothing of the sluggish ditch or the river.