CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MYSTERIOUS MANIAC.
Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe;
She is not mad, who kneels to thee,
For what I am, full well I know,
And what I was, and what should be;
I'll rave no more in proud despair--
My language shall be calm tho' sad
But yet I'll truly, firmly swear,
I am not mad! no, no, not mad!
--M.G. LEWIS
It was at the close of a beautiful day in early spring that Traverse
Rocke, accompanying the old doctor and the old sister, reached the
grove on the borders of the beautiful lake upon the banks of which
was situated the "Calm Retreat."
A large, low, white building surrounded with piazzas and shaded by
fragrant and flowering southern trees, it looked like the luxurious
country seat of some wealthy merchant or planter rather than a
prison for the insane.
Doctor St. Jean conducted his young assistant into a broad and cool
hall on each side of which doors opened into spacious rooms,
occupied by the proprietor and his household. The cells of the
patients, as it appeared were up-stairs. The country doctor and the
matron who had been in charge during the absence of the proprietor
and his sister now came forward to welcome the party and report the
state of the institution and its inmates.
All were as usual, the country doctor said, except "Mademoiselle.
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