oor
at the back. Then there were the windows of the ground-floor, which
might be tried in case the doors were too securely fastened. If only
she could avoid waking any one there was no reason why she should not
succeed. If the worst came to the worst and she was detected, they
could not treat her more cruelly than they had already done.

Ezra had gone back to London, so that she had only three enemies to
contend against, Girdlestone, Rebecca, and old Mrs. Jorrocks. Of these,
Girdlestone slept upon the floor above, and Mrs. Jorrocks, who might
have been the most dangerous of all, as her room was on the
ground-floor, was fortunately so deaf that there was little risk of
disturbing her. The problem resolved itself, therefore, into being able
to pass Rebecca's room without arousing her, and, as she knew the maid
to be a sound sleeper, there seemed to be every chance of success.

She sat at her window all that afternoon steeling her mind to the ordeal
before her. She was weak, poor girl, and shaken, little fit for
anything which required courage and resolution. Her mind ran much upon
her father, and upon the mother whom she had never known, but whose
miniature was among her most precious treasures. The thought of them
helped to dispel the dreadful feeling of utter loneliness, which was the
most unendurable of all her troubles.

It was a cold, bright day, and the tide was in, covering the mudbanks
and lapping up against the walls of the Priory grounds. So clear was it
that she could distinguish the houses at the east end of the Isle of
Wight. When she opened her window and looked out she could perceive
that the sea upon her right formed a great inlet, dreary and dry at low
tide, but looking now like a broad, reed-girt lake. This was Langston
Harbour, and far away at its mouth she could make out a clump of
buildings which marked the watering-place of Hayling.

There were other signs, however, of the presence of man. From her
window she could see the great men-of-war steaming up the Channel, to
and from the anchorage at Spithead. Some were low in the water and
venomous looking, with bulbous turrets and tiny masts. Others were long
and stately, with great lowering hulks and broad expanse of canvas.
Occasionally a foreign service gunboat would pass, white and ghostly,
like some tired seabird flapping its way home. It was one of Kate's few
amusements to watch the passing and repassing of the vessels, and to
spe