"How can you get away? This morning you climbed up and looked out of that window. You did not know I saw you, but I did. Well, what did you see? You know you are on the top of a cliff, and it is nearly three hundred feet to the beach. Well, you cannot escape that way; if you tried you would break your neck. Very well; the only other way to escape is to try and escape through that door. Well, what would happen then? You would not get up the passage a dozen steps before you would be shot." "By whom?" "By those who guard a dangerous madman." "Oh, I see. I'm mad, am I?" "Certainly." "And is this an asylum?" "It's not for you to know." "Still it would go hard with Richard Tresidder if his perfidy should come out." "It can never come out. Yes, I know what is in your mind. Well, supposing you get well enough to be set at liberty? You would be taken to Pendennis Castle as mysteriously as you have been taken here. But where are you? You cannot tell. Are you in England, Ireland, or Scotland? You do not know." "How long shall I be kept here, then?" "Not, I should think, more than a week. You seem to be very much improved in your health." Now this set me wondering greatly, for I did not expect such a revelation. Still I managed to remain calm. "You know why I am here, then?" "Certainly. You have been a madman; as such you have been a constant menace to Miss Naomi Penryn. She has been much afraid of you, and has dreaded the thought of your being at liberty." "Little man," I said, "you know this is a lie." "I wish it were. I have nothing whatever against you; on the contrary, I rather like you." He spoke this kindly, and I detected, as I thought, a friendly look in his face, so acting on the impulse of the moment I said to him, "Will you listen to what I have to tell you?" "Yes," he said, "I will listen." Then I told him briefly all I thought necessary to tell, and yet I felt that I had not the power to tell the truth well. "Your history seems very plausible, young man," he said, "but I have been warned against you." "But Miss Naomi Penryn knows that I am not a madman, neither have I annoyed her in any way." "You lie. I myself received a letter from her before you were brought here." "Let me see that letter." "No. Enough that I have told the truth. She fears you; she pleaded that you might be guarded until such time as it should be safe for you to be at liberty." "Are you sure the letter was written by her own hand? Do you know her handwriting?" "Know her handwriting! Why?" Then he added, quietly, "Yes, I know her handwriting." "But why do you think I shall be set at liberty in a week?" "Because she will have a protector." "What do you mean?" "I mean that to-day she is being married to Master Nicholas Tresidder." "To-day?" "Yes, to-day." "Go away," I said--"go away, for the sake of God. I want to be alone to think." He looked at me I thought pitifully and kindly; then he heaved a sigh and went away.