“Will you let me prepare you for bed, miss?  It is very late, and you must be tired.  Would you like anything to eat before retiring?” she asked, as quietly as if she had been in her service forever.

“In heaven’s name, where am I?  Tell me what does it all mean?  What are they going to do with me?” cried Dorothy, hoarsely, clutching the girl’s hand.

“You could not be in safer hands, Miss Garrison,” said the maid, kindly.  “I am here to do all that is your pleasure.”

“All?  Then I implore you to aid me in getting from—­” began Dorothy, excitedly, coming to her unsteady feet.

“I am loyal to others as well as to you,” interposed the maid, firmly.  “To-morrow you will find that—­but, there, I must say no more.  Your bedchamber is off here, Miss.  You will let me prepare you for the sleep you need so much?  No harm can come to you here.”

Dorothy suddenly felt her courage returning; her brain began to busy itself with hopes, prospects, plans.  After all they could not, would not kill her; she was too valuable to them.  There was the chance of escape and new strength in the belief that she could in some way outwit them; there was a vast difference between the woman who suffered herself to be put to bed by the deft, kindly maid, and the one who dragged herself hopelessly into the room such a short time before.  With the growth of hope and determination there came the courage to inspect her surroundings.

The rooms were charming.  There was a generous, kindly warmth about them that suggested luxury, refinement and the hand of a connoiseur.  The rugs were of rare quality, the furnishings elegant, the appointments modern and complete.  She could not suppress a long breath of surprise and relief:  it was no easy matter to convince herself that she was not in some fastidious English home.  Despite the fearful journey, ending in the perilous ascent over rocks and gullies, she felt herself glowing with the belief that she was still in Brussels, or, at the worst, in Liege.  Her amazement on finding her own trunk and the garments she had left in her chamber the night before was so great that her troubled, bewildered mind raced back to the days when she marvelled over Aladdin’s wonderful lamp and the genii.  How could they have secured her dresses?  But how could anything be impossible to these masters in crime?  Once when her eyes fell upon the dark windows a wistful, eager expression came into them.  The maid observed the look, and smiled.

“It is fully fifty feet to the ground,” she said, simply.  Miss Garrison sighed and then smiled resignedly.

Worn out in body and mind, she sank into sleep even while the mighty, daring resolve to rush over and throw herself from the window was framing itself in her brain.  The resolve was made suddenly, considered briefly and would have been acted on precipitously had not the drowsy, lazy influence of slumber bade her to wait a minute, then another minute, another and another, and then—­to forget.