“Your name is Maud, I heard you say?” remarked Ada, kindly.
“Mad Maud, they call me,” was the reply—“but I am not so mad as they think me. Do not tell them that though, for the Savage Smith would kill me, and then I should not die, as I ought to do, before he does.”
“Alas,” thought Ada, “it is in vain to question this poor creature, her wits are tangled; she may know all, but can tell me nothing; and should she tell me my own story, how can I unravel her strange discourse, or separate the truth from the strange web of fiction which her mental alienation mingles with it.”
“You are thinking,” suddenly said Maud, “so am I, so am I,—do you recollect the burning of the smithy? Ha, ha! That was brave work.”
“What smithy?” said Ada.
“And do you know,” continued Maud, unheedful of the question, “do you know, the crackling roaring flames would not touch the body? No, no, the smith tried that, but the flames would not touch it! Like long fiery tongues they licked round and round it; but, ha, ha! It could not burn, it would not burn. No, no, it would not burn!”
There was a wild insane exultation about the poor creature as she uttered these words that almost alarmed Ada.
“The man you call the smith,” she said, “was he you met one night on Westminster-bridge? I heard you address him by that title.”
“On a bridge?”
“Yes, you must recollect, he would fain have taken your life.”