e is not. I would
not have adopted this plan had there been any other--any gentler one.
But I could not call at your own house--I knew no other where to meet
you.

"This was the only course left to me--indeed it was. I made myself
acquainted with your movements. Do not blame me, then, for prying into
your footsteps. I watched for you all last night-you did not come out.
I was in despair. At last I find you. Do not be so terrified: I will not
even touch your hand if you do not wish it."

As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with
an energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him
into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror--in the
darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep--she did not sob--but
her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to
address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.

His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her
for the world were endless.

"Only just see the home I can give you; for two days--for one day. Only
just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you
wish to leave me, you shall."

More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without
extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and
then a low murmur:

"Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!"

And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that
alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as
he was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses,
thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled
along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had
been thus captured, the carriage stopped.

"Are we here already?" said the man, putting his head out of the window.
"Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study."

In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which
looked white and ghostlike through the mist. The driver dismounted,
opened with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light
the candles in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth,
reappeared, and opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for
which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny
from the carriage. No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her
forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her