Edith slept but little that night. The prospect of escape agitated her whole being, and the new friend who had so unexpectedly appeared took up all her thoughts.

He was a little man most certainly, and Edith already caught herself thinking of him as “Little Dudleigh.” He had nothing whatever of the hero about him. Mowbray, as far as appearances went, far surpassed her new acquaintance in that respect. Still Edith felt bound to overlook or to excuse his slight frame, and in the effort to do this she recalled all the little men of history. She thought of a saying which she had once heard, that “all great men are small men.” This sentiment included under the head of little men Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, with others of the same class, for the list had evidently been made up by one who was himself a little man, and was anxious to enter a forcible protest against the scorn of his bigger brethren. On the present occasion the list of little heroes was so formidable that Edith was prepared to find in “Little Dudleigh” all she wished. Still, in spite of his generous offers, and his chivalrous proposal to put down his dead body for her to march over, she did not feel for him that admiration which such heroism deserved; and she even reproached herself for her lack of common gratitude, for in her high spirits at the prospect of escape, she caught herself more than once smiling at the recollection of “Little Dudleigh's” little ways, his primness, and effeminacy.

At about ten o'clock on the following day “Little Dudleigh” came back.

“That beggar at the gate,” said he, after the usual greetings, “looks very hard at me, but he doesn't pretend to hinder me from coming or going just yet, though what he may do in time remains to be seen.”

“Oh,” said Edith, “you must manage to get me out before Wiggins has a chance to prevent you from coming in.”

{Illustration: “I MUST USE THESE, THEN."}

“I hope so,” said Dudleigh. “Of course, Miss Dalton, as you may suppose, I have been thinking of you ever since I left you, and planning a thousand schemes. But I have made up my mind to this, and you must make up yours to the same. I am sorry, but it can not be avoided. I mean bloodshed.”

“Bloodshed!” said Edith, sadly.

“Of course it is terrible to a lady to be the cause of bloodshed,” said Dudleigh, quietly, “and if there were any other way I would find it out, or you would know about it. But from what I have seen and heard, and from what I know of Wiggins, I see that there is nothing left but to force our way out, for the place is thoroughly guarded day and night.”

“So it is,” said Edith, mournfully.

“If I take you out, I must—Are we overheard?” he asked, looking cautiously around.

“I think not; at least not if you speak low.”

“I must use these, then,” said he, drawing a brace of pistols in a careless way from his coat pocket, and showing them to Edith.

Edith recoiled involuntarily. Bloodshed, and perhaps death, the scandal that would arise, arrest perhaps, or examination before magistrates—all these thoughts came before her. She was brave, but things like these could not be lightly faced. She was brave, but she could not decide just yet that any man's life should be taken for the sake of her liberty.

“I can not bear that,” said she.

“You will get used to them,” said Dudleigh, cheerfully. “They are easy to handle.”

“Put them back.”

“But what else is there to do?”

“I'm sure I don't know,” said Edith, in a dejected tone.

“Well,” said Dudleigh, after a pause, “I thought of this. It is natural. I anticipated some such objection as this on your part. I know very well what it is that you fear, and I don't know but that you are right. Still, I have other plans, which may not appear so objectionable. But in the first place, let me know finally, do you positively and absolutely reject this?” and he tapped the pistols significantly.

“I can not yet consent to risk any life,” said Edith.

“Very well; this may remain over until every thing else fails.”

“But couldn't you use these pistols to terrify them? The sight might make them open the gates.”

“But it might not, and what then? Are you prepared to answer that?” And “Little Dudleigh,” who had been speaking about these things as lightly and as carelessly as a lady would speak about a dress or the trimmings of a bonnet, paused, and looked at her inquiringly. “The fact is,” he continued, as Edith did not answer, “you must be willing to run the risk of killing a man. Your liberty is worth this price. If you say to me, 'Open those gates,' that is what you must encounter. Will you face it? Say the word, and now, now, at this very moment, I will lead you there.”

The offer of immediate escape was thus presented, and for a moment Edith hesitated, but the cost was too great.

“Oh,” she cried, “this is terrible! But I will not consent. No, I will suffer longer rather than pay so frightful a price as human life.”

“Well,” said Dudleigh, “after all, since you have decided this way, I think you are about right. After all, there is really no necessity for so desperate a course. But I have a high idea of what a lady has a right to demand of a gentleman, and I am ready to do what you say.”

“But you have other plans, have you not?”

“Yes, but slow ones—safe but slow. The question is, can you wait? Can you endure your present life? and how long?”

“Rather than cause the loss of life,” said Edith, “I would endure this very much longer.”

“Oh, you will not have to endure it so very long. If you are not too impatient, the time may pass quickly too. But before I make any further proposals, will you allow me to ask you one question? It is this: Suppose you were to escape to-day, where would you go?”

“I have thought about that,” said Edith. “My dearest friend is Miss Plympton. She is the head of the school where I have spent the greater part of my life. She is the one to whom I should naturally go, but she keeps a boarding-school, and I do not wish to go there and meet my old school-mates and see so many. I wish to be secluded. I have sometimes thought of going to that neighborhood, and finding a home where I could occasionally see Miss Plympton, and at other times I have thought of going to my uncle, Sir Lionel Dudleigh.”

At this last remark Dudleigh opened his eyes.

“Who?” he asked. “I don't understand.”

“He is my uncle, you know,” said Edith—“that is, by marriage—and therefore he is naturally the one to whom I should look for defense against Wiggins. In that case Sir Lionel will be far better than poor dear Auntie Plympton. I'm afraid that Wiggins has already frightened her away from me.”

“But how would you get to Sir Lionel?” asked Dudleigh, with a puzzled expression.

“Well, that is what I want to find out. I have no idea where he lives. But you can tell me all about him. I should have asked before, but other things interfered. I will go to him. I feel confident that he will not cast me off.”

“Cast you off! I should think not,” said Dudleigh; “but the difficulty is how to find him. You can get to Dudleigh Manor easily enough—every body knows where that is. But what then? Nobody is there.”

“What! Is not Sir Lionel there?”

“Sir Lionel there! I only wish he was. Why, is it possible that you do not know that Sir Lionel is positively not in England? He travels all the time, and only comes home occasionally. Perhaps you know the cause—his family troubles ten years ago. He had a row with his wife then, and it has blighted his life. Sir Lionel? Why, at this moment I dare say he is somewhere among the Ural Mountains, or Patagonia, or some other equally remote country. But who told you that he was in England?”

Edith was silent. She had taken it for granted that Sir Lionel lived in his own home.

“Can I not write to him?” she asked.

“Of course, if you can only secure his address; and that I will do my utmost to find out for you. But to do this will be a work of time.”

“Yes,” sighed Edith.

“And what can you do in the mean time? Where can you go?”

“There is Miss Plympton.”

“Yes, your teacher. And you don't wish to go to the school, but to some private place near it. Now what sort of a woman is Miss Plympton? Bold and courageous?”

“I'm afraid not,” said Edith, after a thoughtful pause. “I know that she loves me like a mother, and when I first came here I should have relied on her to the utmost. But now I don't know. At any rate, I think she can be easily terrified.” And Edith went on to tell about Miss Plympton's letter to her, and subsequent silence.

“I think with you,” said Dudleigh, after Edith had ended, “that the letter is a forgery. But what is difficult to understand is this apparent desertion of you. This may be accounted for, however, in one of two ways. First, Wiggins may actually have seen her, and frightened her in some way. You say she is timid. The other explanation of her silence is that she may be ill.”

“Ill!” exclaimed Edith, mournfully.

“It may be so.”

“May she not all this time have been trying to rescue me, and been baffled?”

Dudleigh smiled.

“Oh no. If she had tried at all you would have heard something about it before this; something would certainly have been done. The claim of Wiggins would have been contested in a court of law. Oh no; she has evidently done nothing. In fact, I think that, sad as it may seem to you, there can be no doubt about her illness. You say she left you here. No doubt she felt terrible anxiety. The next day she could not see you. Her love for you, and her anxiety, would, perhaps, be too much for her. She may have been taken home ill.”

Edith sighed. The picture of Miss Plympton's grief was too much for her.

“At any rate,” said she, “if I can't find any friends—if Sir Lionel is gone, and poor dear auntie is ill, I can be free. I can help nurse her. Any life is better than this; and I can put my case in the hands of the lawyers.”

“You are, of course, well supplied with money,” said Dudleigh, carelessly.

“Money?”

“Yes; so as to travel, you know, and live, and pay your lawyers.”

“I have no money,” said Edith, helplessly; “that is, not more than a few sovereigns. I did not think of that.”

“No money?”

“No—only a little.”

“No money! Why, how is that? No money? Why, what can you do?”

“Wiggins manages every thing, and has all the money.”

“You have never obtained any from him as yet, then?”

“I have never needed any.”

“He spends your own money in paying these spies and jailers. But if you have no money, how can you manage to live, even if you do escape?”

Edith looked down in despair. The idea of money had never entered her mind. Yet now, since it was mentioned, she felt its importance. Yes, money was the chief thing; without that flight was useless, and liberty impossible. But how could she get it? Wiggins would not give her any. And where could she go? Could she go to Miss Plympton's, to be a dependent upon her at the school? That thought was intolerable. Much as she loved Miss Plympton, she could not descend to that.

“You are certainly not very practical,” said Dudleigh, “or your first thought would have been about this. But you have none, you say, and so it can not be remedied. Is there any thing else? You see you can escape; but what then?”

Dudleigh was silent, and Edith looked at him in deep suspense.

“You say you never see Wiggins now?”

“No.”

“You are not subject to insults?”

“No—to none.”

“Have you the Hall to yourself?”

“Oh yes; I am not interfered with. As long as I stay inside the Hall I am left to myself—only I am watched, of course, as I told you.”

“Of course; but, at any rate, it seems a sort of honorable captivity. You are not like a captive in a dungeon, for instance.”

“Oh no.”

“Would you rather be here, as you are, or at Miss Plympton's school as a sort of dependent?”

“Here, of course. I could not go back there, and face them all.”

“Would you rather live here or in some mean lodging, without money to pay your board?”

“Here,” said Edith, after a pause.

“There are worse situations in the world than this, then?”

“It seems so,” said Edith, slowly.

“By leaving this just now you would be doing worse, then?”

“It looks like it.”

“Well, then, may it not be better for you to remain here, for the present at least, until you hear something from Sir Lionel Dudleigh?”

“But how long will that be?”

“I can not tell.”

“Is there nothing else?”

“Certainly the first thing for you to do is to see a lawyer.”

“But how can I?”

“I can find one.”

“But will you?”

“Of course. I shall be most happy. Only answer me this: If a lawyer takes up your case, shall you be willing to live here, or shall you insist on leaving?”

“I should prefer leaving,” said Edith; “but at the same time, if a lawyer has my case, and I can feel that something is being done, I can be content here, at least for a time, until I hear from Sir Lionel—or Miss Plympton.”

“Well, then, for the present at least, you give up the idea of fighting your way out?”

“Yes—I suppose so.”

“Then all that I have to do is to get a lawyer for you, and write to Sir Lionel, wherever he is.”

“You will not let Wiggins keep my lawyer away?” said Edith, in an imploring voice.

“Oh, I fancy he has such a wholesome dread of lawyers that he won't try to keep one out. At any rate, these lawyers have all kinds of ways, you know, of getting places.”

“And of getting people out of places, too, I hope.”

“I should be sorry not to hope that.”

So Edith found herself compelled to face the difficulties of her present situation a little longer, and endure as best she could the restraint of her imprisonment.