"Pardon me if I express myself too emphatically, Miss Marsh, but I just can't keep it in any longer. You are the victim of as damnable a plot as was ever hatched outside of Hell! Your uncle, desperate at the nearness of your attaining your majority, wants to put you in a place where you will be powerless to interfere with his plans. Alleging that you are highly excitable and not responsible for your actions, they have secured from the Court an order committing you to the Tocquencke Asylum." "Not that--my God! Not that!" The young girl turned white as death, and with an exclamation of horror collapsed onto the seat. Her entire body trembled like a leaf. "What have I done," she moaned, "that I should be persecuted in this way?" Looking up at her companion, her eyes filled with tears, she demanded: "Is it possible that they have the right--does the law give my uncle this power over me?" He nodded affirmatively. "Unfortunately it does," he replied. "The law is all wrong, but it's the law. All your uncle has to do is to secure the affidavit of two physicians that you are insane. You may be perfectly sane, but if it pleases these physicians to conclude otherwise you can be committed to an asylum." "Then no one is safe!" cried the girl. "Any relative wishing, for reasons of his own, to get you out of the way could bribe two unscrupulous physicians and deprive you of your liberty!" "Certainly," rejoined the young man. "There have been many cases of the sort. The process is very simple. In case the person can be made out as violently insane so as liable to do injury to some one, two physicians are called upon to examine the person and to make the necessary affidavit. Then on the petition of anybody interested in the person--your uncle, for instance--a Court can at once, on the statement of the physicians, commit the person to an asylum." "Horrible!" cried Paula. "And these things can happen in free America? Surely there is some remedy?" "Yes," he replied. "Anybody interested in the person, like a father, brother, next friend, or anybody else, can apply at any time they see fit, to a Judge of the Supreme Court, on a _habeas corpus_, and have the question of the sanity of the person tested. This may be done in open Court by a Judge, or he can send it to a referee, if he sees fit, where the proceedings are lengthy. This judge decides whether the person is sane or not. Of course if they had succeeded in putting you in the asylum Mr. Ricaby would have immediately applied for a _habeas corpus_."