, frightful to behold. On the open iron gate that led into this
inclosure was a new brass plate, with 'Sanitarium' inscribed on it in
great black letters. The bell, when the cabman rang it, pealed through
the empty house like a knell; and the pallid, withered old man-servant
in black who answered the door looked as if he had stepped up out of his
grave to perform that service. He let out on me a smell of damp plaster
and new varnish; and he let in with me a chilling draft of the damp
November air. I didn't notice it at the time, but, writing of it now, I
remember that I shivered as I crossed the threshold.

"I gave my name to the servant as 'Mrs. Armadale,' and was shown into
the waiting-room. The very fire itself was dying of damp in the grate.
The only books on the table were the doctor's Works, in sober drab
covers; and the only object that ornamented the walls was the foreign
Diploma (handsomely framed and glazed), of which the doctor had
possessed himself by purchase, along with the foreign name.

"After a moment or two, the proprietor of the Sanitarium came in, and
held up his hands in cheerful astonishment at the sight of me.

"'I hadn't an idea who "Mrs. Armadale" was!' he said. 'My dear lady,
have _you_ changed your name too? How sly of you not to tell me when
we met this morning! Come into my private snuggery--I can't think of
keeping an old and dear friend like you in the patients' waiting-room.'

"The doctor's private snuggery was at the back of the house, looking
out on fields and trees, doomed but not yet destroyed by the builder.
Horrible objects in brass and leather and glass, twisted and turned as
if they were sentient things writhing in agonies of pain, filled up one
end of the room. A great book-case with glass doors extended over the
whole of the opposite wall, and exhibited on its shelves long rows of
glass jars, in which shapeless dead creatures of a dull white color
floated in yellow liquid. Above the fireplace hung a collection of
photographic portraits of men and women, inclosed in two large frames
hanging side by side with a space between them. The left-hand frame
illustrated the effects of nervous suffering as seen in the face; the
right-hand frame exhibited the ravages of insanity from the same
point of view; while the space between was occupied by an elegantly
illuminated scroll, bearing inscribed on it the time-honored motto,
'Prevention is better than Cure.'

"'Here I am, with my galva