All this took much less time to enact than to relate. The scream which had brought Stanton to the spot had been heard by an attendant; there was always one on the watch in the neighborhood of the patients’ garden, and she came hurrying up in an instant. “Who are you all, and what are you doing here?” she cried, casting an alarmed look at the three men and at the lifeless figure stretched on the wooden seat. “A couple of escaped lunatics!” shouted Mr. Percival, struggling furiously. Stanton was holding him by the collar, while Mr. Simpson pinioned him from behind, the admiral standing meantime, bent in eager scrutiny, over the strange figure, decked out in faded flowers and ribbons, that lay insensible before him. “Come here!” he said, beckoning to the attendant; “come and attend to this poor creature, and leave those gentlemen to settle their business alone.” The woman evidently felt that this was what it most concerned her to do; she allowed the admiral to lift the patient in his arms, while she guided him into the house. They had just entered by a back door when Clide de Winton walked by in search of Stanton. The porter had directed him to “somewhere about the grounds,” and, after looking in vain up and down the avenues, he was going to give it up in despair when he saw the door in the garden wall, now wide open, and heard a voice which he recognized as Stanton’s, “Come on! You may as well give in and come quietly; bad language and kicks will only make it worse for you, you rascal!” Clide was quickly on the spot, and beheld Stanton and Mr. Simpson wrestling desperately with a man whose fury seemed a match for their united strength. “I’ve caught him, Master Clide! We have him tight—that rascal Prendergast! You an’t he? You be choked for a —— liar!” Clide stood for a moment confounded. There was not a trait of resemblance, as far as he could see, between the stout, full-bodied man with jet black hair, and the gray-haired, thin, miserable-looking mortal whom he remembered as Mr. Prendergast. His first idea was that Stanton had made another outrageous mistake, as in the case of Miss Eliza Jane Honey. “Who are you? You are not the Mr. Prendergast I knew, are you?” he said, addressing the stranger. “Of course I am not! I never saw you or this madman in my life! My name is Mathew Percival; my daughter is unfortunately a patient in this asylum, and this fellow will have it that she is his wife!” “My master’s wife, you scoundrel! Don’t think to come over us with making believe not to understand! She’s Mr. Clide de Winton’s wife!” said Stanton, taking a tighter grip, as if he feared the prize might make a sudden dart and escape from him.