CHAPTER XII
Then, oh, you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience; and, in ripen’d time,
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance.
SHAKESPEARE
Annette came almost breathless to Emily’s apartment in the morning. “O ma’amselle!” said she, in broken sentences, “what news I have to tell! I have found out who the prisoner is—but he was no prisoner, neither;—he that was shut up in the chamber I told you of. I must think him a ghost, forsooth!”
“Who was the prisoner?” enquired Emily, while her thoughts glanced back to the circumstance of the preceding night.
“You mistake, ma’am,” said Annette; “he was not a prisoner, after all.”
“Who is the person, then?”
“Holy Saints!” rejoined Annette; “How I was surprised! I met him just now, on the rampart below, there. I never
