I put a thick rug across her shoulders, and sat down myself on a stool a couple of feet away.
For fully five or six minutes we sat in silence.

At last, turning her head towards me she said in a sweet, low voice: "I had intended coming earlier on purpose to thank you for your very sweet and gracious courtesy to me, but circumstances were such that I could not leave my--my"-- she hesitated before saying--"my abode.

I am not free, as you and others are, to do what I will.

My existence is sadly cold and stern, and full of horrors that appal.

But I _do_ thank you.