ven him an incredulous look, for he
said, "Don't you think we can take you home? Well, we can and will."
Believing myself in the hands of the police, I did not see how that was
possible. Nor did I have any desire to return. That a man who had
disgraced his family should again enter his old home and expect his
relatives to treat him as though nothing were changed, was a thought
against which my soul rebelled; and, when the day came for my return, I
fought my brother and the doctor feebly as they lifted me from the bed.
But I soon submitted, was placed in a carriage, and driven to the house
I had left a month earlier.

For a few hours my mind was calmer than it had been. But my new-found
ease was soon dispelled by the appearance of a nurse--one of several
who had attended me at the hospital. Though at home and surrounded by
relatives, I jumped to the conclusion that I was still under police
surveillance. At my request my brother had promised not to engage any
nurse who had been in attendance at the hospital. The difficulty of
procuring any other led him to disregard my request, which at the time
he held simply as a whim. But he did not disregard it entirely, for the
nurse selected had merely acted as a substitute on one occasion, and
then only for about an hour. That was long enough, though, for my
memory to record her image.

Finding myself still under surveillance, I soon jumped to a second
conclusion, namely, that this was no brother of mine at all. He
instantly appeared in the light of a sinister double, acting as a
detective. After that I refused absolutely to speak to him again, and
this repudiation I extended to all other relatives, friends and
acquaintances. If the man I had accepted as my brother was spurious, so
was everybody--that was my deduction. For more than two years I was
without relatives or friends, in fact, without a world, except that one
created by my own mind from the chaos that reigned within it.

While I was at Grace Hospital, it was my sense of hearing which was the
most disturbed. But soon after I was placed in my room at home, _all_
of my senses became perverted. I still heard the "false voices"--which
were doubly false, for Truth no longer existed. The tricks played upon
me by my senses of taste, touch, smell, and sight were the source of
great mental anguish. None of my food had its usual flavor. This soon
led to that common delusion that some of it contained poison--not
deadly poison, for