s quite impossible for the attendants to get
her story. She herself in lucid moments could hardly realize her
situation, nor in any wise remember how she had come to it.

But one day new strength seemed to be hers. Feverish and with hair
unbound and a wild light in her eyes, she sprang out of her cot,
sought Genevieve in the main prison, and knelt before her.

"Oh, Madame!" cried Henriette in imploring accents, "if you are the
mistress here, have pity on me, and order them to set me free. I ask
you on my knees!"

"You are still ill, my child," said Sister Genevieve tenderly,
stroking Henriette's, long hair with a gentle, loving touch.

"Certainly you are," confirmed the Doctor, who was just then on his
way to the hospital ward. "Why have you left your bed without my
permission?"

"Oh, monsieur!" said the poor girl, turning to the gentle-voiced,
pleasant-faced man who spoke so kindly, "have you attended me in my
illness? Look--thanks to your care--I have recovered!" she affirmed
confidently, though her hectic features and weak motions belied it.

"They left me alone for a few moments, and I arose and dressed myself.
Now that you see I am quite well, you will tell them to let me go,
will you not?"

The Doctor gazed at her compassionately before answering:

"That is impossible. To release you from this place requires a far
greater power than mine."

"This place?" asked the young girl in surprise. "Why, what is it? Is
it not a hospital?"

"A hospital and a prison," replied the physician gravely.

"A prison!" exclaimed Henriette in terror, striving to remember how
she came to be in such a place.

At last the events that preceded her illness gradually came back to
her mind, until she understood all.

"Ah, I remember," she said at length. "Yes, I remember the soldiers
who dragged me here, and him who commanded.... And Maurice--was he too
condemned? Alas, poor Louise--my last sight of her showed her in the
power of vile, unscrupulous wretches! Oh, dear God, what have I done
to be crushed like this!"

She dropped, weeping and wailing, to the floor.

"Sister," said the Doctor, turning away to hide his tears, "this is
not a case for my care. You must be the physician here."

"I know virtue and innocence when I see it, surely this child has done
nothing worthy of a term at Salpetriere!" replied the kind Genevieve
softly, lifting up the stricken girl and embracing her.

"Come, dear, you must rest yet a little l