CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN DURANCE VILE.
Violet’s eyes flashed with indignation at the old woman’s words. Surely, this was a grim jest; yet equally certain was the girl that the announcement could not be true.
It seemed the very height of absurdity. In this enlightened age it was not probable that a young woman could be carried forcibly away from home and friends and be immured in a lunatic asylum.
At least, this is what Violet thought and believed. She did not know that such crimes are frequently committed; that more than one innocent life has been condemned to a lingering death behind the iron bars of an asylum for the insane, when there was no trace of insanity in the system of the unfortunate victim.
Influence and money have power to surmount the obstacles which are usually placed in the way of a sane person being treated as one bereft of reason.
There are always bad men to be found who for a sum of money will consent to assist villainy like this—men in high positions very often; and once in conjunction with an unprincipled person with an object to attain—an object which can only be attained by the death, or incarceration in a safe and secluded place, of the unfortunate victim—a villain of this stamp can do almost anything.
For once let the name which is assigned to the victim in place of his own proper cognomen be inscribed upon the books at Langley’s as a lunatic just received there for treatment, and that person is henceforth virtually dead to the outside world, to home and friends, and all ties that are dear to the human heart.
Down in the cold, dark grave, hidden away forever from mortal eyes, the poor wretch will not be more utterly lost to the world and its joys and sorrows.
Langley’s no longer exists. It was a blot upon the fair name of the old Crescent City, and has been removed forever from existence; but Violet, in her innocent ignorance, had never heard of such a place at all. So, as the woman stood boldly repeating her announcement that Violet had been brought to Langley’s Private Asylum for the Insane, her words did not bring their full weight of terrible meaning.
But it was bad enough for Violet to know that she was a prisoner in this place whither she had been brought without her knowledge or consent, and she turned upon the old woman with pale, wrathful face, and angry eyes flashing with indignation.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, haughtily. “Who has dared to do such a thing? Who brought me to this place, madame? Answer me, I command you!”
The old woman’s thin, compressed lips parted with a cruel smile which distorted her ugly face into still greater ugliness.
“Who? Why, who but your guardian, Mr. Warrington, to be sure? He said that you had become suddenly insane, your mind had lost its balance, and so forth; and so he decided to leave you here for a time until you came back to reason and common sense.”
Slowly the words, with their dreadful, hidden import, sunk into Violet’s mind. She began to see in a vague way the real state of the case. Of course this had all been Gilbert Warrington’s doings, and the people here no doubt believed that he had a right to dispose of her. Perhaps they really believed her to be insane. That they had deliberately aided and abetted the villain in his wicked schemes seemed too horrible to be true. She could hardly believe such depravity possible.
“Gilbert Warrington is a villain!” she said aloud, her voice trembling with indignation. “I will very soon prove his true character to the physician in charge of this place. Go and tell the physician in charge that I wish to see him, that I must see him a moment.”
A slow smile once more crept over the woman’s stolid face.
“The physician in charge is Doctor Langley himself,” she returned, tersely, “and he has seen you already.”
Violet started with a suppressed cry.
“Seen me already!” she repeated, in a startled tone. “Then it must have been while I was in an unconscious condition!”
The woman nodded.
“He has seen you and has given his opinion as a physician,” she said in a harsh voice. “That is all that is necessary. He is competent to judge your condition, whether you are asleep or awake.”
“Go and send Doctor Langley to me,” repeated Violet, disdainfully. “I wish to see him.”
The old woman hobbled away, closing and locking the door behind her.
The moments came and went—ten, fifteen, twenty. Violet began to despair, when all at once she heard a soft, stealthy footstep in the hall without. A moment later the key turned in the lock and the door swung open.
Violet flashed about and saw standing before her a man of some five-and-fifty years. He had a bald head and a fat, shiny face, blear eyes and sandy mutton-chop whiskers. A man with a soft, shuffling gait, a burly figure, and a generally unpleasant air. He looked what he was—a hypocrite, a villain.
The girl felt her pure soul recoil from the sight of the creature, and the glance of his small, crafty eyes made her shiver with disgust. She felt like the helpless little bird which is safely caged and trapped.
“Well, my dear,” began the man in an oily, insinuating voice, “you wished to see me, so Mrs. Carter says. What can I do for you, my dear?”
“What can you do? You can let me out of this place,” panted Violet, desperately. “Doctor Langley, if you are he”—the bald head bowed like a Chinese mandarin—“I have been brought to this place while in an unconscious state by the worst villain unhung!”
She might have added, “present company excepted,” had she felt in a facetious mood; but Violet had no thought for anything but her own desperate position, and her wild desire to escape from it as soon as possible. Doctor Langley bowed once more.
“Really now, is he, my dear? I am sure I would never have thought such a thing of Mr. Warrington. He has been a pleasant friend of mine for many a long year.”
A cold feeling of despair settled down upon the poor girl’s heart.
“That settles it, then!” she cried. “If you are Gilbert Warrington’s friend, then you are as bad as he. There is no help for me in this world!”
She sunk upon the iron cot once more, and hid her face in her hands. After a while she lifted her eyes to the shining, self-satisfied countenance before her.
“Doctor Langley, will you not help me?” she pleaded in a broken voice. “If you will, there is nothing within my power that I will not do to repay you. Only let me out of this place, and give me money enough to pay my fare home, and I will leave in your hands a written guarantee to pay to you on your order, within a week, any sum of money that you may name.”
His beady eyes glistened with a greedy light, and Violet’s heart leaped up from zero to fever heat, only to go down again to the very depths of despair, as the oily insinuating voice fell upon her ears once more.
“Impossible, my dear young lady, quite impossible,” he returned, blandly. “You forget that you are a minor, and no written or verbal guarantee of yours would be legal. I would have to trust to your honor to furnish the sum you refer to, which would have to be a good round figure, I assure you. And then, besides, you would be more than apt to give away the secret of this institution—and its existence is a secret from the city authorities—though, of course, everything is carried on in a perfectly straight, square, and lawful manner. But I have reasons of my own—private and weighty reasons—for wishing its existence kept a profound secret from the authorities. So I am forced to decline your offer.”
“I swear to you——”
Violet’s voice was choked with tears. She fell down at his feet upon the bare, dusty floor, and lifted her pale face and pleading eyes, from which the tears were streaming. It was a sight to touch a heart of stone. But this villain’s heart was harder than stone, in fact, he had no heart to touch.
“Oh, hear me and believe me!” she moaned, wringing her hands in wild supplication. “I will keep my word. I swear it! I will send you the money—whatever amount you claim—and will swear by everything sacred to keep the secret of this place. Oh, believe me, sir, I beg of you! Indeed, I am incapable of false dealing.”
The greedy look in the small eyes deepened; he clinched and unclinched his damp, unwholesome-looking hands.
“I really can not do it, my dear,” he repeated, firmly. “And, if I am not mistaken, there is Warrington now, come to make a call upon you!”
For a loud ring at the gate bell had broken in upon the doctor’s words. Violet’s face grew stern and set, and her eyes flashed fire.
“I will see him face to face, and he shall set me free, or”—she caught her breath with a stifled groan—“there will be some dreadful deed done. I will not endure this persecution any longer!”
The words died upon her lips; for there before her, facing her with an evil smile, was Gilbert Warrington!
