He toddled off, grumbling. A moment later the small, narrow door opened and Mrs. Johnson, the head attendant, entered, followed by Paula.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Every minute of the day and night, for three long, weary weeks, that had seemed like years, Paula had prayed for deliverance from what was little better than a living death. At first, when she was brought to the asylum she thought she would go really mad. The first glimpse of the barred windows, the bolted doors and padded cells filled her with terror. She became hysterical, and for two days could not be pacified. She refused all nourishment, and, unable to sleep, passed her time pacing up and down her room. The superintendent and nurses fully believed that she was insane, and the symptoms she displayed being common in patients, no heed was paid to them or to her protests. Gradually, seeing the futility of tears and resistance, the girl grew quieter, and calmly began to look forward to the moment when the horrid nightmare would be at an end, and she would be set free. She knew that Mr. Ricaby and Tod were exhausting every legal resource to procure her liberty and that an order for her release was only a question of time. But the long, agonizing wait, the knowledge that she was the associate of, and breathed the same air as wretched, demented beings whose one hope of deliverance was a speedy death, was more than she could bear. Of Dr. Zacharie she had, fortunately, seen very little. Only once since her incarceration had the physician attempted to visit her professionally, and then she was seized with such a violent attack of hysteria that the nurse, alarmed, begged him to retire.
All this anxiety and mental distress could not have failed to affect her general health, and Mr. Ricaby was startled when he caught sight of the girl's pale, wan face, with its traces of suffering. She smiled faintly when she saw him, and, as he darted forward, extended a thin, emaciated hand.
"Oh, Mr. Ricaby, I'm so glad, so glad to see you!" she said weakly. "I didn't expect you to-day."
Shocked by her appearance, the lawyer was too much agitated at first to answer. Controlling himself with an effort, he asked in a low tone:
"How are you? Have they been kind to you?"
Paula made no answer. Looking over her shoulder in a frightened kind of way, she said in a whisper: