Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then
the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be
here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it.

It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at
the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LOCKED IN.

"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were
anything else in the world."--HARE.

It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story,
several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no
noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation
upon some catastrophe or _denouement_ that develops itself therefrom.

Last night, a man--an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory--had been kept
awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter--but
it has to do with our story.

Last night, also, Faith--Paul's second letter just received--had lain
sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt,
pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she
felt--thus, or so--in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure
of her feeling now?

The new wine in the old bottles--the new cloth in the old
garment--these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once,
satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a
seething--a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and
torn--wonderingly, helplessly--in the half-comprehended struggle!

So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure
and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed
her into rest.

She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa,
and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in
her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on--she fell
asleep.

How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were
evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and
cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was
all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she
awoke.

Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was
here alone. That it was night--that nobody could know it--that she was
locked up here, in the great dreary mill.

She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaz