s brought to the asylum
she thought she would go really mad. The first glimpse of the barred
windows, the bolted doors and padded cells filled her with terror. She
became hysterical, and for two days could not be pacified. She refused
all nourishment, and, unable to sleep, passed her time pacing up and
down her room. The superintendent and nurses fully believed that she was
insane, and the symptoms she displayed being common in patients, no heed
was paid to them or to her protests. Gradually, seeing the futility of
tears and resistance, the girl grew quieter, and calmly began to look
forward to the moment when the horrid nightmare would be at an end, and
she would be set free. She knew that Mr. Ricaby and Tod were exhausting
every legal resource to procure her liberty and that an order for her
release was only a question of time. But the long, agonizing wait, the
knowledge that she was the associate of, and breathed the same air as
wretched, demented beings whose one hope of deliverance was a speedy
death, was more than she could bear. Of Dr. Zacharie she had,
fortunately, seen very little. Only once since her incarceration had the
physician attempted to visit her professionally, and then she was seized
with such a violent attack of hysteria that the nurse, alarmed, begged
him to retire.

All this anxiety and mental distress could not have failed to affect her
general health, and Mr. Ricaby was startled when he caught sight of the
girl's pale, wan face, with its traces of suffering. She smiled faintly
when she saw him, and, as he darted forward, extended a thin, emaciated
hand.

"Oh, Mr. Ricaby, I'm so glad, so glad to see you!" she said weakly. "I
didn't expect you to-day."

Shocked by her appearance, the lawyer was too much agitated at first to
answer. Controlling himself with an effort, he asked in a low tone:

"How are you? Have they been kind to you?"

Paula made no answer. Looking over her shoulder in a frightened kind of
way, she said in a whisper:

"Tell that woman to go away."

He turned to the attendant.

"Will you please leave us?" he said politely.

Mrs. Johnson hesitated. It was against the rules to let the patient out
of her sight. Shaking her head doubtfully, she said:

"I'm supposed to---- You see, sir, I'm responsible for the young lady.
But I'll go. It will be all right, I am sure. If you want me I shall be
in there." Pointing to the entrance to the wards, she opened the door
and quietly d