Her misery was traceable to his conduct and his judgement--both bad.

And yet all this while he might be working to release her, near upon rescuing! She swung round to the side of her lover against these executioner parents, and scribbled to him as well as she could under the cracks in her windowshutters, urging him to appear.

She spent her heart on it.

A note to her friend, the English lady, protested her love for Alvan, but with less abandonment, with a frozen resignation to the loss of him--all around her was so dark! By-and-by there was a scratching at her door.

The maid whom she trusted brought her news of Alvan: outside the door and in, the maid and mistress knelt.