"How it happened I never knew, but by some accident her father's letter to me became mixed up with her papers, and while I was gone she read it, learning for the first time what the mystery was which hung over her mother's fate, and also of the doom awaiting her. She fainted, it was said, and during the illness which followed raved in frantic fury, suffering no one to approach her save Griswold, who, being at that time a physician in the Lunatic Asylum at Worcester, hastened to her side, acquiring over her a singular power. It is strange that in her fits of violence she never speaks of me, nor yet of Charlie Hudson. Indeed, the past seems all a blank to her, save as she refers to it incidentally as she has to-day." "But did she stay crazy?" asked Edith. "Not wholly so," returned Arthur, "but from that time her reason began to fail, until now she is hopelessly insane, and has not known a rational moment for more than three years." "Nor been home in all that time?" said Edith, while Arthur replied, "She would not go. She seemed to shrink from meeting her former friends; and at last, acting upon Griswold's advice, I placed her in the Asylum, going myself hither and thither like a feather tossed about by the gale. Griswold was my ballast, my polar star, and when he said to me, buy a house and have a home, I answered that I would; and when he told me of Grassy Spring, bidding me purchase it, I did so, although I dreaded coming to this neighborhood of all others. I had carefully kept everything from Grace, who, while hearing that I was in some way interested in a Florida estate, knew none of the particulars, and I became morbidly jealous lest she or anyone else should hear of Nina's misfortune, or what she was to me. "It was a favorite idea of Griswold's that Nina might be benefited by a change of place, and when I first came here I knew that she, too, would follow me in due time. She has hitherto been subject to violent attacks of frenzy, during which nothing within her reach was safe; and, knowing this, Griswold advised me to prepare a room, where, at such times, she could be kept by herself, for the sight of people always made her worse. The Den, with the large closet adjoining, was the result of this suggestion, and as I have a great dread of neighborhood gossip, I resolved to say nothing of her until compelled to do so by her presence in the house. I fancied that Mrs. Johnson was a discreet woman, and my purpose was to tell her of Nina as soon as I was fairly settled; but she abused her trust by letting Grace into the room. You refused to enter, and my respect for you from that moment was unbounded." She looked at him in much surprise, and he added, "You wonder, I suppose, how I know this. I was here at the time, was in the next room when you came into the library to wait for Grace. I watched you through the glass door, wondering who you were, until my cousin appeared and I overheard the whole."