greatly she despised him.

But he did not appear; the hours passed slowly, and with the afternoon
came a clouded sky, and weariness and reaction of spirits; fatigue of
body, and something like illness; and on that a great terror. If they
drugged her in her food? The thought was like a knife in the girl's
heart, and while she still writhed on it, her ear caught the creak of a
board in the passage, and a furtive tread that came, and softly went
again, and once more returned. She stood, her heart beating; and fancied
she heard the sound of breathing on the other side of the door. Then her
eye alighted on a something white at the foot of the door, that had not
been there a minute earlier. It was a tiny note. While she gazed at it
the footsteps stole away again.

She pounced on the note and opened it, thinking it might be from Mrs.
Olney. But the opening lines smacked of other modes of speech than hers;
and though Julia had no experience of Mr. Thomasson's epistolary style,
she felt no surprise when she found the initials F.T. appended to
the message.

'Madam,' it ran. 'You are in danger here, and I in no less of being held
to account for acts which my heart abhors. Openly to oppose myself to
Mr. P.--the course my soul dictates--were dangerous for us both, and
another must be found. If he drink deep to-night, I will, heaven
assisting, purloin the key, and release you at ten, or as soon after as
may be. Jarvey, who is honest, and fears the turn things are taking,
will have a carriage waiting in the road. Be ready, hide this, and when
you are free, though I seek no return for services attended by much
risk, yet if you desire to find one, an easy way may appear of
requiting,

'Madam, your devoted, obedient servant, F.T.'

Julia's face glowed. 'He cannot do even a kind act as it should be
done,' she thought. 'But once away it will be easy to reward him. At
worst he shall tell me how I came to be set down here.'

She spent the rest of the day divided between anxiety on that point--for
Mr. Thomasson's intervention went some way to weaken the theory she had
built up with so much joy--and impatience for night to come and put an
end to her suspense. She was now as much concerned to escape the ordeal
of Mr. Pomeroy's visit as she had been earlier in the day to see him.
And she had her wish. He did not come; she fancied he might be willing
to let the dullness and loneliness, the monotony and silence of her
prison, work their ef