Perhaps some way of escape would offer itself.

Then my thoughts returned to Paola, and I was tortured by surmises as to her fate, and chiefly as to how she could have eluded the search that must have been made for her in the hut where I had left her.

Had the peasant befriended her, I wondered; and what did she think of my protracted absence?
I sat on the edge of the bed and gave rein to my conjectures.

The noises in the castle had all ceased, and still I sat on, unconscious of time, my taper burning low.
It may have been midnight when I was startled by the sound of a stealthy step in the corridor near my door.

A heavy footfall I should have left unheeded, but this soft tread aroused me on the instant, and I sat listening.
It halted at my door, and was succeeded by a soft, scratching sound.
Noiselessly I rose, and with ready hands I waited, prepared, in the instinct of self-preservation, to fall upon the intruder, however futile the act might be.