I am glad about one thing. If the Count did carry me here and undress me, he must have in a hurry, for everything in my pockets is intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him, and he would not have tolerated that. He would have taken it or destroyed it. Now I look round this room, and although it has been so full of fear to me, now it is a sort of sanctuary. It is 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 it closed. It had been so forcibly pushed into the frame that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the door was not closed, but the door is locked from the inside. I fear I was not dreaming last night, and so I must remember that my life is even more in danger now.

Last night the Count asked me in a very suave voice to write three letters. The first letter should say that my work here was nearly finished, and that I would set out for home within a few days. The second letter would say that I was leaving on the day that I wrote the letter, and the third should say that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would have refused, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count. I am so absolutely in his power. And to refuse would be make him suspicious and to arouse his anger. 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 something of that gathering wrath which I had seen when he threw that fair woman from him.

Vocabulary:

Sanctuary: A protected place
Tolerate: Allow to happen
Forcibly: With a lot of power or strength
Splinter: The way that wood breaks
Suave: Smooth and polite
Arouse: Wake up
Wrath: Anger