"And now to tell you a strange thing. The day after that body was committed to the grave, I sat here, wearied out with thinking and wondering, and I saw you stretched on a couch in what looked like a church crypt. You were bound hand and foot, and by the light of a lamp hanging from the wall behind you, I could see blood upon your face. A man came out of the shadowed part of the room, and stood so that he hid your face from me, and then all faded from my sight. I cried out to my father, who sat near me reading, 'Frank is alive! I have seen him.' I described the place and your state to my father, being perfectly sure of the truth of what I had seen. He sought to convince me I had dreamed it, but I knew I had not closed my eyes; and, besides, there was I know not what of reality in the sight, which would not suffer me to doubt. I sent for Luke, who was in the house at the time, and inquired of him whether he knew of such a room as I had seen, but he could not help me. My own mind ran on the dungeons of Castle Mulgrave, and I gave my father no rest until he ventured with me, professing his desire to consult a book in the earl's library as the reason of our going. I pretended a whim to see the vaults of the castle, and the old nobleman gave order to his seneschal to take me through them, who did so willingly, he and I being great friends. (He it was who gave me my lessons in riding on my first visit to the castle, so you see your one-time jealousy was misplaced.) From him I heard that Lord Sheffield had his abode at present at Normanby, where he led a life less restrained than was possible under his father's roof, which set me thinking that there might be underground rooms there; but my guide assured me there was not so much as a wine-cellar. 'It was,' he said, 'a poor place, but honoured by my lord's residence when heavy drinking and high play and other delights were desired. For the last ten days the revelling had been perpetual.' Had your disappearance anything to do with this merrymaking? I asked myself. I would set Luke to spy upon the comings and goings of his lordship, I resolved, little as he was fitted by nature for the part. But on our return, which was made in safety, I found Martha in distress about the poor fellow, who had struck his foot with an axe, while chopping wood, and he is even yet hobbling on a crutch. Will it always be that we poor women must depend, even in maddening anxiety, on the aid of men? If I had been free, I should have donned the garb of manhood, and ridden the length and breadth of the Isle to find you, for I had the feeling that your prison was not very far away.