I confess that, even in my sad condition of mental darkness, I ranked this story with the class which at school we briefly summarised as 'little anecdotes which ain't true.' This acquaintance with my doctor and his ways was of a late date, when kindly nature had given me enough of returning strength to be able to hold my own in ordinary talk, with only occasional relapses into the light-headedness which survived the first long delirium, when habit had begun to dull the edge of my helpless fear, and robbed the hourly associations of my life of something of their unspeakable horror. I was then hopeless of escape, and had grown, I think, indifferent to it, as to all who were supposed to care for me I had apparently become an object of indifference. In the _morne désespoir_ which had utterly taken possession of me, I knew of no one to whom to appeal. Only those who had consigned me to the life could save me from it, and what was I to say to them? I was ill when they did it; I was ill still. Why should they be anxious to convict themselves of wrong, and of such wrong? And so in my misery I let the days go by without wearing myself out still more by idle effort, stupidly resigned To drift on my path, like a wind-wafted leaf, O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. The few visitors who fell to my lot had of course accepted their own foregone conclusions about my condition, and every external appearance of the place was comfortable to the view. Under the paternal care of such a dear good old man, with such pretty scenes to look at, and such nice gardens to walk about in, and an hotel-like sitting-room of my own, I was obviously wicked if I was not very happy. Other visitors to that place there were, who might have taken another view of things. Two friends of mine, who had known me well in old days, came whilst I was there to see, as it happened, other inmates of the asylum. Both knew that I was confined there, and both desired to see me. One especially, who had his suspicions in the matter, made, as I now know from himself, every effort to make his way to me. But it was not permitted in either case, and I was given out as 'too ill' to see anybody. In the malady from which I was supposed to be suffering, the sight of an old friend's face might well be thought one of the best of possible prescriptions. I was not too ill. It was a lie. In all the facts of this piece of autobiography, I know of none more damning. The reports of my condition, and the changes of it, were to depend upon the doctors who lived on us, and the ignorant warders who took their first cue from them, and the three relatives who had taken upon themselves the responsibility for my imprisonment.