"He wanted my money, I suppose; and instead of killing me, he shut me up in that place." She said no more just then, being too weak to say much; and Ellen, who was employed in soothing and comforting her, did not want her to talk.

It was afterwards, when she had been established in her old rooms at the Grange, and had taken a little breakfast, that she told Ellen something more about her captivity.
"O, Ellen, if I were to tell you what I have suffered! But no, there are no words can tell that.

It's not that they ill-used me.

The girl who waited on me brought me good food, and even tried to make me comfortable in her rough way; but to sit there day after day, Ellen, alone, with only a dim light from the top of the window above the wood-stack; to sit there wondering about my husband, whether he was searching for me still, and would ever find me, or whether, as was more likely, he had given me up for dead.

Think of me, Ellen, if you can, sitting there for weeks and months in my despair, trying to reckon the days sometimes by the aid of some old newspaper which the girl brought me now and then, at other times losing count of them altogether." "Dear Mrs.Holbrook, I can't understand it even yet.