!" implored the wretched girl, detaining her. "Where am I,
Sheila Kelly? Is this, as I suspect, a dungeon beneath the ruined wing
of Ellsworth?"

"Yes, ye're right; 'tis the underground chambers, where t' ould
Ellsworths hid from the Indians and kept their prisoners, and this will
be yer tomb, Dainty Chase. Better try the laudanum, and put yersilf out
of misery at once!" flashing out, and locking the door on the outside as
before.

CHAPTER XXIII.

AH! THE PITY OF IT!

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 bo