I am glad about one thing. If the Count did carry me here and undress me, he must have been in a hurry, for everything in my pockets is still there. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him, and he would not have accepted that. He would have taken the diary or destroyed it. Now I look round this room, and although it has been so full of fear to me in the past, now it is the one place where I am safe from those awful women, who were, who are, waiting to suck my blood.

I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, because I have to know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs, I found that it was closed. It had been closed so hard that part of the wood of the door was broken. I could see that the bolt of the door was not closed, but the door is locked from the inside. I believe now that I was not dreaming last night, and so I must remember that my life is even more in danger.

Last night the Count asked me, very smoothly and politely, to write three letters. The first letter should say that my work here was nearly finished, and that I would be going home in a few days. The second letter would say that I was leaving on the day that I wrote the letter. The third letter would say that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would have refused to do this, but I thought that right now it would be madness to quarrel with the Count. I am so absolutely in his power. And to refuse would make him suspicious and angry. He knows that I know too much, and that if I am alive I will be dangerous to him. My only chance is to keep as free as possible. Something may happen which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes that he was starting to show some of the anger which I had seen when he threw that fair woman from him.