ging the plea of my minority, he insisted upon
assuming the charge of my property, and in order to consummate his
avaricious designs, and screen his name from opprobrium, he told the
world that I was hopelessly insane; and that the discovery of this
fact, one hour after his marriage, had induced him to send me abroad
under the care of a faithful and judicious nurse. To give plausibility
to this statement, a paragraph was inserted in the New York papers
announcing that I was a raving maniac and an inmate of an English
asylum for lunatics. Mr. Clayton, my lawyer, was the sole surviving
witness of my final interview, and of its financial provisions; and,
had he yielded to bribes and threats which were unsparingly offered,
God only knows what would have been my fate, since the tender mercies
of my husband destined me to the cheerful and attractive precincts of
a mad-house. To Mr. Clayton's stern integrity and brave defence, I am
indebted for the preservation of my fortune and the defeat of a
daring and iniquitous scheme to arrest me in London and commit me to the
custody of an asylum-warden. Fortunately for me, he lived long enough
to transfer to my own guardianship, when I attained my majority, the
estate which had cost me every earthly hope. Six months after my
departure from America I bade farewell to Europe, and plunged into
the most remote and unfrequented portions of the East, where I wished to
remain unknown and unnoticed. In a half-defiant and half-superstitious
mood, I had assumed the talismanic and mystical name of Alga Gerome,
with the faint hope that it might shield me from the intrigues and
persecutions which I felt assured would always dog the steps of
Evelyn Carlyle. Having appointed a cautious and confidential agent in
New York and Paris, I destroyed all traces of my whereabouts, and
became as utterly lost to the world as though the portals of the
grave had closed upon me. Without friends, and accompanied only by
Elsie and her son Robert, I lived year after year in wandering through
strange lands. Books and pictures were my solace, and to strangle time
I first devoted myself to drawing and painting. After a while I came
back to Rome, and frequented the studios and galleries, perfecting
myself in the mechanical department of Art. But fear of encountering
some familiar face drove me from the Eternal City, and a sudden whim
took me to Madeira, where I spent the only portion of my life to
which I recur with any d