Then it came home to her--why not try one of the other cells?
Possibly she would be lucky enough to find an empty one; the chances
were, she felt, that most of them were.
Suiting action to the thought, she stepped quietly from the niche in
the wall, moved noiselessly along its surface, and came at length to
another dungeon similar to She one she had occupied, except that it had
no window in its oaken door. Fumbling with the bunch of keys, she took
the first one around which her fingers fell and thrust it hurriedly
into the lock. Would it open the haven to temporary safety? She
struggled with it--turning it first to the left and then to the right.
The footsteps were sounding nearer and nearer every minute, the voices
were growing louder.
Frantic, she gave the key a final desperate twist, and as a sigh of
relief escaped her lips the door swung open. Slipping through the
aperture, she closed it softly after her and, panting from excitement
and her exertions, turned and faced the recesses of her hiding-place.
It was black, pitch-black, except for a long ray of light that
struggled in between the heavy door and its casing, but as Stella
Donovan stood there in the gloom she was aware that she was not the
only occupant of the cell.
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