“They put me in an asylum. Afterwards Mr. Marx passed himself off as my brother and had me moved into a private one. The commissioners came and I appeared before them. I was sane. They let me go. Where is Mr. Marx? Where is Mr. Marx?”
There was a deep silence. Then I held out my hand to my father and he clasped it.
“Thank God!” I cried, my voice quivering with a great sob—“thank God!”
“Amen,” my father repeated softly.
Again that question, in the same dry, hard tone.
“Where is Mr. Marx?”
We looked at him—at his nervously twitching hands and burning eyes. The madness was upon him again. We must not let him go. My father drew me on one side.
“I shall go to London with you to-night,” he said. “What shall we do with this man?”
“He must stay here,” I answered. “Leave it to me.”
I went up to him and laid my hand upon his shoulder.