That letter threw an additional gloom over Edith's life, and lent a fresh misery to her situation. The prospect before her now was dark indeed. She was in a prison-house, where her imprisonment seemed destined to grow closer and closer. There was no reason why Wiggins should spare her at all. Having so successfully shut her within the grounds for so long a time, he would now be able to carry out any mode of confinement which might be desirable to him. She had heard of people being confined in private mad-houses, through the conspiracy of relatives who coveted their property. Thus far she had believed these stories to be wholly imaginary, but now she began to believe them true. Her own case had shown her the possibility of unjust and illegal imprisonment, and she had not yet been able to find out any mode of escape. This place seemed now to be her future prison-house, where her imprisonment would grow from bad to worse, and where she herself, under the terrible struggle of feeling to which she would be subject, might finally sink into a state of madness. Such a prospect was terrible beyond words. It filled her with horror, and she regarded her future with the most gloomy forebodings. In the face of all this she had a sense of the most utter helplessness, and the disappointments which she had thus far encountered only served to deepen her dejection. In the midst of all this there was one hope for her, and one only. That solitary hope rested altogether on her friend Dudleigh. When he last left her he had promised to come to her again in six or eight weeks. This, then, was the only thing left, and to his return she looked forward incessantly, with the most eager and impatient hope. To her it now seemed a matter of secondary importance what might be her own feelings toward Dudleigh. She felt confident of his love toward her, and in the abhorrence with which she recoiled from the terrible future which Wiggins was planning for her she was able to contemplate Dudleigh's passion with complacency. She did not love the little man, but if he could save her from the horror that rose before her, she resolved to shrink from no sacrifice of feeling, but grant him whatever reward he might claim. Time passed. Six weeks were over, but there were no signs of Dudleigh. The suspense of Edith now became terrible. She began to fear that Wiggins had shut him out, and had refused to allow him to enter again. If this were so, and if Dudleigh had submitted to such exclusion, then all was indeed lost. But Edith would not yet believe it. She clung to hope, and since he had said “six or eight weeks,” she thought that she might wait the extreme limit mentioned by him before yielding to despair. Eight weeks passed. On the day when those weeks had expired Edith found herself in a fever of suspense, devoured by the most intolerable impatience, with all her thoughts and feelings now centred upon Dudleigh, and her last hope fixed upon him only.