I shuddered
at the unspeakable horrors of that grim fortress.
Could I allow this refined defenseless girl to remain an inmate of that
Bastille, the terrors of which I had heard men in Russia hint at with
bated breath? They had willfully maimed her and deprived her of both
hearing and the power of speech, and now they intended that she should
be driven mad by that silence and loneliness that must always end in
insanity.
"I have decided," I said suddenly, turning to the woman who had
conducted me there, and having now removed the steel bonds of the
prisoner with a key she secretly carried, stood with folded hands in the
calm attitude of the religious.
"You will not act with rashness?" she implored in quick apprehension.
"Remember, your life is at stake, as well as my own."
"Her enemies intended that I, too, should die!" I answered, looking
straight into those deep mysterious brown eyes which held me as beneath
a spell. "They have drawn her into their power because she had no means
of defense.
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