time she has recognized no one. Cutter brought her here, and the
north wing of the house was fitted up for her. He has come from time to
time to see her, and she has proper attendants. You never see them nor
her, for she has a walled garden,--the one against which the hot-houses
and the tennis-court are built. Of course the servants know,--everybody
in the house knows all about it; but this is a huge old place, and there
is plenty of room. It is not thought safe to take her out, and there
appears to be something so peculiar about her insanity that Cutter
discourages the idea of the ordinary treatment of placing the patient in
the company of other insane, giving them all manner of amusement, and so
on. He seems to think that if she is left alone, and is well cared for,
seeing only, from time to time, the faces of persons she has known
before, she may recover."

"I trust so, indeed," I said earnestly.

"We all pray that she may, poor thing!" rejoined Carvel, very sadly.

"Now listen. Her son. Paul Patoff, arrived this morning, and insisted
upon seeing her this afternoon. Cutter said it could do no harm, as she
probably would not recognize him. To our astonishment and delight she
knew him at once for her son, though she treated him with a coldness
almost amounting to horror. She stepped back from him, and folded her
arms, only saying, over and over again, 'Paul, why did you come
here,--why did you come?' We could get nothing more from her than that,
and at the end of ten minutes we left her. She seemed very much
exhausted, excited, too, and the nurse who was with her advised us to
go."

"It is a great step, however, that she should have recognized any one,
especially her own son," I remarked.

"So Cutter holds. She never takes the least notice of him. But he has
suggested to me that while she is still in this humor it would be worth
while trying whether she has any recollection of you. He says that
anything which recalls so violent a shock as the one she experienced
when you saved her life may possibly recall a connected train of
thought, even though it be a very painful reminiscence; and anything
which helps memory helps recovery. He considers hers the most
extraordinary case he has ever seen, and he must have seen a great many;
he says that there is almost always some delusion, some fixed idea, in
insanity. Madame Patoff seems to have none, but she has absolutely no
recognition for any one, nor any memory for events