The woman’s grim features relaxed with a cruel smile.
“Where you are safe, young woman—where all of your kind ought to be. You are in Langley’s Private Asylum for the Insane.”
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.