Lucia walked with her mother to the gates of the jail, but she could not obtain permission to go any further.

Although the proposal to send her to England was, in fact, abandoned, there seemed no reason why she should be brought sooner than was needful into contact with what could not but be painful; and she was obliged to yield in this matter to her mother's judgment.
They parted, therefore, at the gates; and Mrs.Costello was admitted without delay to the cell where Christian was confined.

A cell, properly speaking, it was not; for they had removed him since her former visit, and he now occupied a good-sized room on the upper floor, which was nearly as bare and as glaringly white as the other, but more airy.

His low wooden bedstead was drawn near to the window, which, cold as it was, stood open, while a small box-stove, heated almost red hot, kept the temperature of the room tolerably high.

On the bed, partly dressed, and wrapped in a blanket, lay the prisoner.