though it should be by her hands who spoke the
words. In the tumult, that, as we have seen,
followed the giving of the verdict, her wild outcry
was not heard. She fought and tore her
way among the crowd to get out of the court,
and those who came in her path fell on one side
to let her pass, believing, as Cornelius Vampi
had done before, that this terrible woman was
mad.

Her violence, her menaces, her fury, continued
when she got outside. She howled forth the
story of her mistress's wrongs in unintelligible
words. She called on the bystanders to revolt
against such gross and monstrous injustice, and
to help her to take vengeance upon this woman
who was escaping before their very eyes—in a
word, her demeanour was so wild, and her
threats and denunciations were so alarming,
that it became necessary at last for the police who
were about the neighbourhood of the court to
interfere.

The efforts of these to keep her quiet were in
no degree successful. Indeed, she seemed now
to be more violent than ever. She accused the
police of a neglect of duty. They, like the rest,
were playing her false. If they suffered that
woman to go free, they would be letting loose a
murderess on the world.

While she was thus raving, it chanced that
the same constable came up who had encountered
her before, outside the walls of Newgate.
"You told me you would keep her safe," she
cried, at sight of the man, recognising him
instantly. "You promised me that she should
not escape, and now you are going to let her
slip through your fingers. Good ones, you are,
to look after the public safety."

The constable who had seen her before, talked
aside with his colleagues.

"She's a poor mad creetur," he said, keeping
his eye upon her. "I've seen her before; she's
been on the lurk about here for some time
past."

The men talked about it awhile longer, till a
sergeant of police coming up, and hearing what
they had to say, decided that it would be the
wisest course to have her removed at once to
some place of security.

"She'll be doing a mischief otherwise to
somebody or other," he said, "or maybe to
herself."

It seemed so likely, that no time was lost in
carrying out the officer's suggestion, and the
wretched woman was removed, struggling and
appealing to the crowd for succour to the last.
No one interfered, however, for the report had
got about that she was only a poor crazy
woman; and indeed the people assembled in the
Old Bailey considered that there was sufficient
proof of that fact in what their own eyes and
ears told them. Mad, evidently mad.

Alas, and were they right? Was this
conclusion, arrived at by so many, a just one after
all? Had these recent events turned her brain?
The dwelling, as she had lately done, upon one
fixed idea night and day incessantly, had that
been too much for her? Her love for her
mistress, her grief at the loss she had sustained,
her wild increasing thirst for vengeance, had
these conflicting passions, seething and working
without intermission in her head, destroyed the
balance of her mind, and upset at last her
reason?

Such was the opinion of many persons well
qualified to judge in such matters. It was the
opinion of the magistrate before whom she was
taken. It was the opinion of the medical officer
who examined her, and it was the opinion of the
authorities at the county lunatic asylum, to
which she was at length consigned.

Poor unhappy creature. It was too true.
The force of these terrible emotions indulged in
to an excess, and to the exclusion of all other
thoughts, the want of rest, the neglect of all
things that mind and body need to keep them in
health, had done their dreadful work, and this
uneducated intellect had at length altogether
given way. For some time Jane Cantanker
remained a dangerous maniac, her case one of
the worst in the asylum. The deranged mind
retained, unhappily, that one fixed idea which
lay at the root of its distortion—the desire for
vengeance. This varied not. Be the
inconsistencies and follies which succeeded one
another in the wretched woman's mind as
various and incongruous as they might, there was
always at least consistency, nay, something of
coherency, in this. Her story never varied.
Her mistress whom she had loved was dead,
had been murdered by one Gabrielle Penmore,
and must be speedily and completely avenged.
She would repeat this story over to herself or
to others a hundred times a day, and would
concoct as many schemes for carrying her
vengeance out, brooding over them by herself,
or consulting others as to their feasibility, whenever
she could get a listener.

Among those who visited this asylum from
time to time, seeking for tidings of its unhappy
inmates, there was one lady who came only to
inquire for this particular patient, Jane
Cantanker, and who showed a marked anxiety to
hear of her condition. She would ask eagerly
at such times if there were any change in the
state of the patient, if there was any prospect
of amelioration, and begged that if there was
anything she could do that might make the
patient's life less terrible, they would tell her,
that she might do it. She even threw out some
hints about her wish to see this woman, if it
might be possible. But the authorities, when
they heard of this—and the doctor, who knew
the patient more than all—were peremptory in
their refusal. For the lady who made this
request was that same Gabrielle Penmore whom
this dangerous lunatic was for ever denouncing
in her ravings.

At last it seemed as if the excessive violence
of this woman's frenzy was beginning to wear
itself out—to wear itself out along with the
body of the poor creature whom it had possessed,
so that she got to be quieter altogether, and her
violent fits got to be fewer and further between.
Gabrielle had one day taken that photograph of
the late Miss Carrington, which has already
done service in the course of this narrative, to