Jefferies, which I at once recognised, so confounded and
terrified me, that I felt almost choking. I could not utter a word.
"Did you write that letter?" he repeated, with slow and intense
emphasis. "You did, liar and hypocrite. You dared to write that foul
and infamous libel; but it shall be your last. Men will universally
believe you mad, if I choose to call for an inquiry. I can make
you appear so. The suspicions expressed in this letter are the
hallucinations and alarms of a moping lunatic. I have defeated your
first attempt, madam; and by the holy God, if ever you make another,
chains, darkness, and the keeper's whip shall be your portion." With
these astounding words he left the room, leaving me almost fainting.
I was now almost reduced to despair; my last cast had failed; I had no
course left but that of escaping secretly from the castle, and placing
myself under the protection of the nearest magistrate. I felt if this
were not done, and speedily, that I should be _murdered_. No one, from
mere description, can have an idea of the unmitigated horror of my
situation; a helpless, weak, inexperienced girl, placed under the
power, and wholly at the mercy of evil men, and feeling that I had it
not in my power to escape for one moment from the malignant influences
under which I was probably doomed to fall; with a consciousness, too,
that if violence, if murder were designed, no human being would be
near to aid me; my dying shriek would be lost in void space.
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