In this district the houses were much scattered, and most of them were surrounded by large gardens.
Frederic Vernon passed into a side street which was little better than a road, and soon reached a large square building of stone, set in a perfect wilderness of trees and bushes. A high iron fence surrounded the ill-kept garden, and the single iron gate was locked.
Ringing a bell at the gate, Frederic Vernon thus summoned a porter, who came, and after asking him a few questions, let him in.
Approaching the gate, Robert saw a sign over it, in gilt letters, which read in this fashion:
Dr. Nicholas Rushwood,
Private Sanitarium for the Weak-Minded.
Peering through the ironwork, our hero saw Frederic Vernon follow the porter up the steps of the stone building and disappear inside.
"This must be the place to which Mrs. Vernon has been taken," thought Robert.
He waited at the gate for awhile to see if Frederic Vernon would come out, but the young spendthrift failed to put in an appearance.
The sanitarium was located on a corner, and ran from one street to the next, so that our hero could walk around three sides of the place. On the other side was a high stone wall, which separated the asylum grounds from those of a well-kept garden.
All of the windows on the second and third stories of the stone building were very closely barred.