The oaken door clanged heavily to, and the massive bolt, as it shot into place, sounded in Dainty's ears like the trump of doom, shutting her into a living grave; for now that she had heard of her husband's condition, she had no longer the least hope of rescue. In all the wide, cruel world, who was there that had any interest in poor Dainty Chase save her husband and her mother? Her husband was dying, and her poor, helpless little mother was powerless to save her. They would tell her that her fair daughter had eloped with a favorite lover; and how was she to know that the story was untrue? In her desire to spare her gentle little mother pain, Dainty had withheld the whole story of the persecutions she had suffered at Ellsworth. In every letter home she had written the substance of these words: "It is very pleasant here, and I am very happy. I long for you to be with me." And the mother's heart had rejoiced in her daughter's happiness. When she should awaken from her drugged sleep, and hear that Lovelace was dying, and her daughter fled with another, there would be no one to comfort her, none to say that the story was untrue. She would have to simply accept it in all its horror, and her tender heart would break with the despair of it all. "Oh, my husband; my mother!" sobbed the heartbroken girl; and she wondered how Heaven could permit such cruelties as had been practised on her by her relentless enemies. Before the coming of her heartless jailer she had been suffering with hunger and thirst; but she forgot both now as she lay weeping and moaning and praying, until after awhile the deep sleep of exhaustion stole over her, and she slumbered for long hours, starting fitfully now and then and murmuring feverishly the name of her beloved. When she started broad awake at last, the lamp had burned low, and she knew by this that another day must have passed. Her lips were parched with thirst, and she seized the bottle of water, and drank feverishly, though she thought bitterly: "Most likely it is poisoned, and the draught will bring me a horrible death! But what matter? A speedy death is better than dying by inches in a living tomb!" But she was mistaken--the water was not drugged. Her enemies would have been shocked at the idea of a downright murder. When she died of the foul air and deprivation and grief, they would complacently call it the visitation of God. If she was driven to swallow the poison they had sent her, it would be by her own choice that she had died a suicide's death. It would not rest like a weight on their consciences; and they hoped she would do it, for then they would place the body where it might conveniently be found, and the coroner's verdict would say she died from laudanum administered by her own hand. Oh, the fiendish deed had been plotted well! And when Mrs. Ellsworth revived next day, and heard from Sheila Kelly the story of Dainty's despair, she was well pleased, saying to herself, excusingly: