Again and again she was questioned; instruments of torture were brought before her--one of the first and slightest used--more to terrify than actually to torture, for that was not yet the Grand Inquisitor's design; and still she was firm, calm, unalterable in her resolution to refuse reply.

And then Don Luis spoke of mercy, which was to consist of imprisonment in solitude and darkness, to allow time for reflection on her final answer--a concession, he said, in a tone far more terrifying to Marie than even the horrors around her, only granted in consideration of her age and sex.

None opposed the sentence; and she was conducted to a close and narrow cell, in which no light could penetrate save through a narrow chink in the roof.
How many days and nights thus passed the hapless prisoner could not have told, for there was nothing to mark the hours.

Her food was delivered to her by means of a turn-screw in the wall, so that not even the sight of a fellow-creature could disturb her solitude, or give her the faintest hope of exciting human pity.

Her sole hope, her sole refuge was in prayer; and, oh! how blessed was the calm, the confidence it gave.
So scanty was her allowance of food, that more than once the thought, crossed her, whether or not, death by famine would be her allotted doom; and human nature shuddered, but the spirit did not quail! Hour after hour passed, she knew not whether it was night or day, when the gloom of her dungeon was suddenly illumined; she knew not at first how or whence, so noiseless was the entrance of the intruder, but gradually she traced the light to a small lamp held in the hand of a shrouded individual, whom she recognized at once.