e Patoff stood before us, dressed in a close-fitting gown of black
velvet, closed at the throat with a clasp of pearls; her thick hair,
just turning gray, was coiled in masses low behind her head, drawn back
in long broad waves on each side, in the manner of the Greeks. Her
features, slightly aquiline and strongly defined, wore an expression of
haughty indifference, not at all like the stolid stare which John Carvel
had described to me, and though her dark eyes gazed upon us without
apparent recognition, their look was not without intelligence. She had
been walking up and down in the long drawing-room where we found her,
and she had paused in her walk as we entered, standing beneath a
chandelier which carried five lamps; there were others upon the wall,
high up on brackets and beyond her reach. There was no fireplace, but
the air was very warm, heated, I suppose, by some concealed apparatus.
The furniture consisted of deep chairs, lounges and divans of every
description; three or four bookcases were filled with books, and there
were many volumes piled in a disorderly fashion upon the different
tables, and some lay upon the floor beside a cushioned lounge, which
looked as though it were the favorite resting-place of the inmate of the
apartment. At first sight it seemed to me that few precautions were
observed; the nurse was seated in an outer apartment, and Madame Patoff
was quite alone and free. But the room where she was left was so
constructed that she could do herself no harm. There was no fire; the
lamps were all out of reach; the windows were locked, and she could only
go out by passing through the antechamber where the nurse was watching.
There was a singular lack of all those little objects which encumbered
the drawing-room of Carvel Place; there was not a bit of porcelain or
glass, nor a paper-knife, nor any kind of metal object. There were a few
pictures upon the walls, and the walls themselves were hung with a light
gray material, that looked like silk and brilliantly reflected the
strong light, making an extraordinary background for Madame Patoff's
figure, clad as she was in black velvet and white lace.

We stood before her, Cutter and I, for several seconds, watching for
some change of expression in her face. He had hoped that my sudden
appearance would arouse a memory in her disordered mind. I understood
his anxiety, but it appeared to me very unlikely that when she failed to
recognize him she should remembe