"So be it," said Colville, angrily. "But remember, you will remain a prisoner until you accede to my wishes, no matter how long you hold out. Haidee, you need not provide so sumptuously for so contumacious a captive. Let bread and water be her portion until her rebellious spirit is broken. I will see her again in a month's time. Come, doctor; come, Haidee; let us leave her to the pleasures of solitary contemplation." All three retired; the door, which had been provided with another key, was securely locked, and she was left again in her loneliness and bitter sorrow. Weak and weary with her long journey and unbroken fast she lay still, her limbs aching with fatigue and her heart almost broken with sorrow. Her momentary glimpse of her dear ones had filled her heart with a wild flood of new tenderness for them. She had come back to them from the dead, and she felt that they would have been filled with the deepest joy in receiving her again. She had been so cruelly torn from them in the very moment when they first caught sight of her! She wondered what they would think. "Perhaps they will share old Willis' delusion that it was a spirit," thought she, with a flood of tears. She had almost forgotten Fanny in the bitter anguish of being retaken thus in the very moment of impending re-union with her family. But presently she heard the clank of the poor captive's chain, as she turned restlessly on her hard bed, and caught the sound of her groans. "Poor Fanny," she thought, "how will she bear this sad disappointment when she hoped so much from my escape!" Weak and trembling she rose from the bed, and taking the lamp in her hand staggeringly descended the stairs in quest of her poor companion in captivity and sorrow. Fanny lay extended on the cot, moaning piteously. She cried out in surprise and terror, fearing that Haidee had returned to threaten and abuse her. But she soon saw that it was the sweet face of the captive girl that beamed upon her. "My God, Miss Lawrence, is it you?" she said. "I thought, I hoped that you had escaped!" Lily threw herself down upon the hard stone floor and wept piteously. The trial was hard upon herself, as affecting her own individual welfare. Now the burden of this poor creature's sorrow added to the weight of her own made it almost insupportable. It was some time before she could summon sufficient calmness to relate her mournful story to the suffering creature. "It is all over," she said in conclusion. "There is no hope of escape from our prison, and death is before us." Fanny lay still, moaning now and then in pain. She made no attempt to rise, and at last Lily noticed the fact. "What is the matter with you, my poor soul?" said she. "Are you worse? Are you unable to rise?" "I cannot raise my head," answered the poor girl patiently, "my poor bones have been shaken and beaten terribly by old Haidee. I am very stiff and sore."