merciful providence just saved me in time from falling
into the trap. My door happened to be ajar, and I heard her talking
to some one in the passage. SHE WAS ONE OF THEM! They still fancied it
might be a bluff on my part, and she was put in charge of me to make
sure! After that, my nerve went completely. I dared trust nobody.

"I think I almost hypnotized myself. After a while, I almost forgot
that I was really Jane Finn. I was so bent on playing the part of Janet
Vandemeyer that my nerves began to play me tricks. I became really
ill--for months I sank into a sort of stupor. I felt sure I should
die soon, and that nothing really mattered. A sane person shut up in a
lunatic asylum often ends by becoming insane, they say. I guess I was
like that. Playing my part had become second nature to me. I wasn't even
unhappy in the end--just apathetic. Nothing seemed to matter. And the
years went on.

"And then suddenly things seemed to change. Mrs. Vandemeyer came down
from London. She and the doctor asked me questions, experimented with
various treatments. There was some talk of sending me to a specialist in
Paris. In the end, they did not dare risk it. I overheard something that
seemed to show that other people--friends--were looking for me. I
learnt later that the nurse who had looked after me went to Paris,
and consulted a specialist, representing herself to be me. He put her
through some searching tests, and exposed her loss of memory to be
fraudulent; but she had taken a note of his methods and reproduced
them on me. I dare say I couldn't have deceived the specialist for a
minute--a man who has made a lifelong study of a thing is unique--but
I managed once again to hold my own with them. The fact that I'd not
thought of myself as Jane Finn for so long made it easier.

"One night I was whisked off to London at a moment's notice. They took
me back to the house in Soho. Once I got away from the sanatorium I felt
different--as though something in me that had been buried for a long
time was waking up again.

"They sent me in to wait on Mr. Beresford. (Of course I didn't know
his name then.) I was suspicious--I thought it was another trap. But he
looked so honest, I could hardly believe it. However, I was careful in
all I said, for I knew we could be overheard. There's a small hole, high
up in the wall.

"But on the Sunday afternoon a message was brought to the house. They
were all very disturbed. Without their knowing, I li