III.

THE next day, Mrs. Chetwynde and Nurse
Bradshaw found themselves, by eleven o'clock
in the morning, in the waiting-room of an
eminent physician. They had discovered that
this gentleman had begun practice there at
the required date, and had patients mentally
afflicted under his care in that place; but
that he had not remained in it long. After
waiting for nearly half-an-hour, Dr. Urling
appeared. Mrs. Chetwynde put her questions
with straightforwardness and simplicity: the
physician replied concisely.

He remembered Sir Jasper Carghill's
placing under his care a young woman named
Alice Bell, afflicted with certain delusions.
She was allowed to have her child with her.
Sir Jasper had represented her as his elder
brother's mistress; and her delusions were
that she had been married to Sir Rupert
Carghill in Scotland; and that the present
baronet was the author of a conspiracy to
deprive her child of its legal rights. She
was fretful; but never violent, and it had
never been necessary to place her under
personal restraint. She was very handsome,
naturally intelligent and amiable, and
passionately fond of her child. Dr. Urling had
more than once wished to discharge her
as perfectly capable of managing herself
and her affairs; but she had such a terror
of Sir Jasper, that she begged him to
keep her safe with her child from his
machinations.

"Then she died in your house?" said Mrs.
Chetwynde.

"No," replied Dr. Urling, rather hesitatingly.
"She began at last not to feel herself
secure with me. Her delusions returned
as strongly as ever; and, one night during
a short absence of mine in the country, she left
the house, and neither I nor Sir Jasper ever
succeeded in obtaining the slightest trace of
her afterwards."

Mrs. Chetwynde shuddered. "Dr. Urling,
that poor woman was my mother. Had I
been taken from her before she fled? Was
it in search of me she cast herself loose
upon the world?"

"I fear it was. Sir Jasper had been that
day, and removed you in my absence."

"Doctor Urling, my mother was no more
mad than I am. Her so-called delusion was
the truth. Sir Jasper had his own interests
to serve in proving her dishonoured and
insane. Tell me all you remember of her
escape."

"When I returned home, my housekeeper
informed me that, early in the day, Sir Jasper
Carghill had been to see Alice Bell; that
she had heard high altercation going on
in the room between them mingled with the
child's cries; that, when she attempted
to enter, she found the door fastened.
When Sir Jasper left, the nurse went into
the room, and found Alice raving and crying
over her child, saying, she had destroyed her
own and its good name for ever, by some
concession she had made; that she could not
bear its presence, for it reproached her; and
she sent it out of the room. While she was
in this condition, Sir Jasper returned; and,
in spite of the mother's frenzy and my
servant's resistance, he forced the little girl
from the house. The same evening Alice
herself escaped, and all subsequent efforts to
trace her, living or dead, proved vain."

"Sir Jasper told me always that she was
dead; " said Mrs. Chetwynde. "Doctor
Urling, do you believe her to have been
mad?"

"If a delusion on any one point possesses
the mind, we say the patient is a
monomaniac. Alice Bell was said to have such a
delusion when sent to me, and she persisted
in it strenuously."

"But if it were no delusion?"

Doctor Urling shook his head. Mrs.
Chetwynde repeated her question.

"Alice Bell was friendless, and I was poor.
She wished to remain with me, and Sir Jasper
paid for her handsomely. Altogether she was
not more than six months under my roof; but
that was long enough to show me surveillance
was unnecessary. She knew, and I knew,
also, that if I discharged her she might be
sent to some other place, where no help could
reach her; but I was never Sir Jasper's
tool—never."

Doctor Urling had not an honest eye; he
had contradicted himself more than once;
but Mrs. Chetwynde was clear-witted enough
herself to sift the grain from the chaff; and,
having obtained all the clue that she could
to the making out of the truth, she went
straight to Sir Jasper Carghill, told him
what she had learnt, and from whom she had
learnt it.

He was confused at first; but, recovering
himself quickly, he told her she was a fool,
defied her to injure him, and ordered her to
leave the house, and never to cross its
threshold again.

When Mrs. Chetwynde's family were convinced,
from Doctor Urling's admissions, that
her remembrance of the events she had seen
transacted in that room were no hallucinations,
they were only too eager to follow
whatever she suggested, to clear up the
mystery. An advertisement was inserted in all
the leading English and foreign journals,
offering a reward to anyone who would come
forward, and give information concerning
one Alice Bell, who had escaped from a
private lunatic asylum, about forty years
ago, after having been cruelly deprived of her
child.

IV.

FOR many months the advertisement
remained unanswered. Then, one morning, the
readers of the Times met the following reply.
"Alice Carghill is living. Who seeks her?"