“I’m better,” she moaned, slipping out to the floor. “He wants me to put his strait-jacket on, and lock him in there alone. Then he will get over it in a day or two. He always does.” They were surprised, but they let her have her way. All their thoughts were for Italy, lying there like one dead, with the edge of the fatal diary peeping from her corsage, where she had hastily thrust it when confronted by Percy Seabright. Professor Doepkin and the others hung over her in yearning devotion, laving her face and hands with cooling waters, and at last a faint heave of her breast betrayed the joyful fact that life was returning. They knew that consciousness was returning when she moved one weak little hand and pressed it on her breast, where the diary lay under her corsage. “She remembers it first, and no wonder. She has almost lost her life to secure it,” sobbed Mrs. Gardner. The physician came presently, and soon afterward Italy was removed to her home. He said it was best for her to be taken away from the scene. Mrs. Gardner and her husband went with her, and Emmett Harlow and the German remained to guard as a prisoner the man who was at that moment raving with maniacal fury in his bonds. He would never go free again to menace humanity with his dangerous liberty. He was detected now, and when Italy grew better in the next few days she resumed the reading of the diary that was destined to throw such clear light on the awful tragedy of her father’s death. And when she had finished the reading she flung herself, in a burst of anguish, at her mother’s feet. “Oh, mama, mama, that fiend, that demon killed my father for a jealous fancy--a slighted love! Oh, how horrible it is! how horrible! But you are cleared, my dearest one, my martyred angel!” CHAPTER XXIX. LOVE TURNED TO HATE. Three weeks had passed away, and the day of Percy Seabright’s trial had arrived. It had been postponed that long on account of the serious illness of Mrs. Smith, who was expected to be one of the principal witnesses for the defense, as they had decided to set up insanity as their plea. Percy Seabright had entirely recovered from his paroxysm, and seemed quite sane again, but he was kept a close prisoner in the padded room, the authorities having detailed special guards to prevent his escape. Mrs. Smith, in spite of a fictitious energy, was very low. She had sustained severe injuries in her breast, and coughed up blood daily. She would never be strong again, and her physician foreboded her sudden death by severe hemorrhage. It almost broke the faithful old creature’s heart when she learned that her master was to be tried on a charge of murder--murdering his dearest friend, Ronald Vale. She declared that it could not be true.