rt of whatever I undertake,
and if your reasons are too sacred to be communicated to me, you must
select some other agent. I do not solicit your confidence, mark you;
but I must know all, or nothing."

"The day she was taken so ill, I was undressing her, and she looked at
me very strangely, and said she believed she was losing her mind. Then
she raised her hands and prayed:

"'Lord, be merciful! Lord, seal my lips! Seal my lips!'

"Since then she has not known me, but several times she cried out
'Ricordo'! Last night she sat up suddenly, and stared at something she
seemed to see right before her in the air. She shook her head at first,
and said--'Oh, no! it cannot be possible'. Then she clutched at some
invisible object, and a look of horror came into her eyes. She struck
her palms together, and I never heard such an agonizing cry, 'There is
no help! I must believe it--oh Ricordo!--Ricordo--Ricordo'. She fell
back and shivered as if she had an ague. I tried to soothe her, and
told her she had a bad dream. She kept saying: 'Oh, horrible--it was,
it was Ricordo!' Once, early this morning, she pulled me down to her
and whispered: 'Don't tell mother--it would break her heart to know it
was Ricordo!' She has not spoken distinctly since, though she mutters
to herself. Now, Mr. Dunbar, if I did not feel as sure of her innocence
as I am of my own, I should never tell you this; but I want your aid to
hunt and catch this 'Ricordo', because I am satisfied it will help to
clear her."

"Was it not 'Ricardo'?"

"No, sir--it sounded as if spelled with an o not an a--and it was
'Ricordo'."

"Ricardo is a proper name, but I am under the impression that 'Ricordo'
is an Italian word that means simply a remembrance, a souvenir,
sometimes a warning. I am glad, however, to have the clue, and I will
do all I can to discover what connection exists between that word, and
the crime. Can you tell me nothing more?"

"Sometimes she seems to be drawing and painting, and talks to her
father about pictures; and once she said: 'Hush! hush--mother is ill.
She must not know I died, because I promised her I would bear
everything. She made me promise'."

At this moment the keen wail of a young child, summoned the warden's
wife to her own apartment, and Mr. Dunbar sat down in the rocking-chair
beside the iron cot.

In that strange terra incognita, the realm of psychology, are there
hidden laws that defy alike the ravages of cerebral disease, and