"Worse than that, sir. She was a young lady who was murdered by a jealous woman. A Doctor Pratt, the friend and abettor of Colville in all his sins, was called in to view the body of the murdered girl. He pronounced her dead. In reality he discovered that she was in a curious condition known to the medical profession as catalepsy. He suffered them to bury her, then stole her body from the vault and sold it to Colville, who was in love with her. They brought her here, used every means to bring her to life, and at length succeeded. She revived after four days and found herself the prisoner of my husband, dead to all the world beside, and doomed never to see her friends again unless she consented to become his wife." She paused, overcome by exhaustion. Mr. Shelton sat white and rigid on the foot of the cot regarding her fixedly. He seemed frozen into a statue. At length he gasped rather than spoke: "Her name?" Fanny Colville's wasted hand went up to her brow in painful perplexity. "I do not seem to recollect it. Strange that I should forget. I am sure she told me," she murmured. "Try and think of it, Mrs. Colville. Much depends upon it," urged Shelton, anxiously. She was silent a few moments, lost in troubled thought. At length she said, timidly: "I am afraid I cannot recall it, sir. My poor brain is dazed by my troubles, perhaps. But I am sure of one thing. She had the name of a flower, sir--a beautiful flower. I remember that, because it seemed to suit her so well." Shelton's eyes brightened. "Was her name--Lily?" he asked, impressively. Instantly a gleam of remembrance irradiated the listener's face. "Lily, Lily!" she said; "yes, that was indeed her name, sir. How could I forget it when I remembered everything else so well? I recall it distinctly now. It _was_ Lily--Lily Lawrence." Shelton sprang up with a cry that rang through the dungeon. He was like one dazzled by the flash of light that broke in upon his mind. Here was the solution of the dreadful mystery that had baffled him for weary months, the confirmation of the vague suspicion that had haunted him for days. It was a living, breathing, beautiful woman he sought instead of a cold and lifeless body! No wonder the banker's reward failed of its object! "She tried to escape from here, did she not?" he inquired abruptly. Fanny replied by relating the circumstances of Lily's two attempts at escape, and how Colville had carried her off the second time from under her father's own roof. "The villains! the fiends!" muttered Shelton, crushing an oath between his clenched teeth. "After they brought her back again she was put into the room above me, but only for a night. She came in to see me after midnight, and promised to come again soon. But she never came, and I concluded that she had been removed to another place. I am confident she has not escaped from them, for had she done so she would have sent someone to liberate me at once."