On the morning of the third day the Wild
Woman came to Lily's bedside, and said,
"March!" The girl had nothing to pack up,
and still wore the modest little bonnet and shawl
she had had on when she ran away from Madame
de Kergolay. The Wild Woman had discovered
her locket, and, not without tears and entreaties
on Lily's part, had wrenched it away from her.
She had nothing now that belonged to her in
the world, and was Quite Alone.

The Wild Woman's travelling dress was a
faded tartan gown, and a more faded scarlet
shawl, with a bonnet inconceivably battered.
She did not fail to remark, however, as she
bade Lily survey her, that she had been in
the habit of wearing velvets and cashmeres,
and a bird of paradise plume in her bonnet.
And then she cursed, and took a little more
cognac.

The Italian waxwork man, who was either
the Wild Woman's husband, or some relative,
near, but decidedly not dear to her, was to be
of the party. He was not so very ill-conditioned
a fellow, and was passing kind to Lily, never
failing to remonstrate, and, if need were, to
interfere if the woman offered to strike her.
The Wild Woman's temper, especially towards
evening, when she had partaken most copiously
of cognac, was very uncertain; and there was
no knowing when the blows might begin to
fall.

They went by means of a waggon, laden with
the waxwork and the scenery and appointments
of the Wild Woman (for the shows were a joint
concern, and Ventimillioni appeared to be
proprietor of them both), to a place called Pontoise.
Thence to Orleans, and thence even so far as
Dijon. They halted by night at mean inns,
where sometimes they obtained a couple of
bedrooms cheaply, and sometimes Ventimillioni and
the countess—that is to say, the Wild Woman
—camped out in a barn. The toothless old
woman had been left in charge of the hovel on
the quay in Paris, but Lily had always, however
small and miserable it might be, a room to
herself. The Wild Woman never failed, likewise,
in the precaution of taking away Lily's clothes,
and the candle, and locking the door after her,
when she retired for the night.

The girl fell into a state of semi-lassitude
and apathy. She did not seem to care much
what became of her. She had lost her purview.
Her horizon was bounded on all sides by the
Wild Woman and the Italian, and beyond them
she could discern nothing. She was not specially
desirous to die; but she was not particularly
anxious about living. She was not even
actively unhappy. She was quite submissive
and resigned: only numbed, and chilled, and
torpid.

There were fairs on the road; and at some of
these the Wild Woman gave her performance,
and Signor Ventimillioni exhibited his
waxwork. On these occasions Lily was always
carefully locked in her room, and got neither
dinner nor supper till the pair returned at night,
the woman not very sober, now grumbling, now
chuckling over the receipts of the day and
evening.

It was at a place called St. Esprit, and when
Lily had been locked up many hours on a hot
August afternoon, and felt very lonely—just
that kind of loneliness when you begin to hear
strange noises that have no foundation save in
your imagination—that, a big country girl, who
was waitress and chambermaid at the miserable
auberge the party had put up at, came into the
room. "I have got another key, little one,"
she said, triumphantly.

The country girl had very red elbows and a
face like a tomato, little pig's eyes, and matted
hair whose roots were within an inch and a half
of her eyebrows. She breathed hard when she
spoke, and, seemingly, was not unaccustomed
to the use of garlic as a condiment with her
meals.

"I have a key, little one," she continued,
"and something else, too. Attrape." And
from beneath her apron she produced a mighty
slice of bread covered with blackberry jam.

Lily was really hungry, and only too glad to
get the bread and jam. She had well-nigh
devoured it, when the girl whose face was like a
tomato said:

"Why don't you run away? I would, if I
were you. I know those wretches treat you
cruelly. I have heard them abusing you at
night, after I have gone to bed. Tenez, ma
petite. I have got fifteen francs saved up to
buy me a golden cross, but my bien-aimé will
give me another, I am sure, even if he is obliged
to sell himself as a substitute in the conscription
to do so. Take my fifteen francs, and run
away from these bad people.

Run away! She had tried that once before;
but whither was Lily to run, now?

Lily heard the good-natured country girl out,
and thanked her for her bread and jam, but she
bade her take back the key, lest she should get
herself into trouble, and told her that she had
no thoughts of running away. No one meant to
treat her unkindly, she said, and, if she was
unhappy, it was her own fault. She was, in truth,
too weary to fly. She did not care much what
became of her. The first hour of captivity is
very awful; you rage and scream, and feel as
though you could hang yourself to your dungeon
bars, or dash your brains out against the walls;
but days, weeks, months, years pass, and at last
you bear your durance with a dull apathy that
is well-nigh utter indifference. It does not so
much matter. A year the more or a year the
less does not count. And at last, when haply
the cell door is opened, and you are told that
you are free, you are in no very great hurry
to move. You have remained here so long,
why should you not stay here a little longer?
Prisoners have been known to memorialise their
jailer to be allowed to stop, when their discharge
has arrived, and at last they have had to be
turned out of the prison by force. There are
times when you might leave Gonfaloniere's
door in the casemates of Spielberg open, and
tell him that the sentinel is bought, and that he