of madness she
had spent in a lunatic asylum, after being driven mad by a shock, waking
to sanity at last only to find herself an old woman.

Had I been mad? Was I old now, with my wasted white hands?

Tingling with dread I touched my face. My chin was rough with a stubble of
beard. I fancied there were hollows in my cheeks. Was my hair grey?

Somewhere there must be a mirror. I tried to struggle up and find it, that
I might see my own image and know the worst; but a giddiness came over me,
and I had to lie down again, or I knew that I should faint.

"I have Carmona to thank for this," I said aloud, furiously. But then I
asked myself, how did I know that there ever had been a Carmona, that
there ever had been a girl called Monica Vale? Perhaps I had dreamed them
both, in the time of madness.

There had been many dreams. Suddenly I remembered a man's voice saying:
"Only keep him till after I'm married." The voice had been Carmona's. I
knew that now.

No, I had never been mad. A horrible trick had been played on me--in the
gypsy's cave. I remembered that. Everything was blank since, except for
the dreams. Perhaps some of them had been true. Perhaps,
half-unconscious--(for somebody must have come out from behind that red
curtain and struck me on the head)--I had been taken to him, that he might
be sure it was the right man. Somebody had been ordered to keep me, until
after--Again I sat up, with a groan. I must get out of this. I must save
Monica from the man, and from her own mother. But--if it was already too
late?

There was a sound in the room. From a door I could not see, someone had
come in. A key had turned, and was being turned again. The dream of the
Inquisition came back to my mind, for the man in the black _capucha_ stood
looking at me.

"Who are you?" I asked. Although for many years I had spoken English, and
Spanish only for a few weeks, it was mechanically that I used Spanish now.

"Your good friend," came from under the _capucha_, while there was a
glitter of eyes through the two slanting slits in the black silk.

"If you're my friend, you'll let me out of this place, wherever it is," I
said.

"But I am your doctor as well, and you are too weak to go out. This is the
first time you have spoken sensible words, and now they are not wise."

"I'm not too weak to hear how I came here, how long I have been, and--" He
cut me short, with a wave of a yellow old hand. Under the _capucha_ he
wore an ordin