The moment she had passed,
out peeped Amanda and crept after her barefooted, saw her to her joy
enter the chamber and close the door behind her, then 'like a tiger
of the wood,' made one noiseless bound, turned the key, and sped
back to her own chamber--with the feeling of Mark Antony when he
said, 'Now let it work!'
Dorothy was startled by a slight click, but concluded at once that
it was nothing but a further fall of the latch, and was glad it was
no louder. The same moment she saw, by the dim rushlight, the signs
of struggle which the room presented, and discovered that Richard
was gone. Her first emotion was an undefined agony: they had
murdered him, or carried him off to a dungeon! There were the
bedclothes in a tumbled heap upon the floor! And--yes--it was blood
with which they were marked! Sickening at the thought, and
forgetting all about her own situation, she sank on the chair by the
bedside.
Knowing the castle as she did, a very little reflection convinced
her that if he had met with violence it must have been in attempting
to escape; and if he had made the attempt, might he not have
succeeded? There had certainly been no fresh alarm given.
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