Having thrown this side-light upon my narrative¹, I can now resume the statement of my own personal experiences. These I had brought down, as the reader will doubtless remember, to the date of the arrival of the savage-looking wanderer who called himself Corporal Rufus Smith. This incident occurred about the beginning of the month of October, and I find upon a comparison of dates that Dr. Easterling’s visit to Cloomber preceded it by three weeks or more.

During all this time I was in sore distress² of mind, for I had never seen anything either of Gabriel or of her brother since the interview in which the general had discovered the communication which was kept up between us. I had no doubt that some sort of restraint had been placed upon them; and the thought that we had brought trouble on their heads was a bitter one both to my sister and myself.

Our anxiety, however, was considerably³ mitigated⁴ by the receipt, a couple of days after my last talk with the general, of a note from Mordaunt Heatherstone. This was brought us by a little, ragged⁵ urchin⁶, the son of one of the fishermen, who informed us that it had been handed to him at the avenue gate by an old woman — who, I expect, must have been the Cloomber cook.

“MY DEAREST FRIENDS,” it ran, “Gabriel and I have grieved to think how concerned you must be at having neither heard from nor seen us. The fact is that we are compelled to remain in the house. And this compulsion is not physical but moral.

“Our poor father, who gets more and more nervous every day, has entreated⁷ us to promise him that we will not go out until after the fifth of October, and to allay⁸ his fears we have given him the desired pledge. On the other hand, he has promised us that after the fifth — that is, in less than a week — we shall be as free as air to come or go as we please, so we have something to look forward to.

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