So at length it was decided to make the attempt; but, after a delicate and tedious operation, the case was resigned as hopeless, for no good results were apparent.
A tiny portion of the skull still pressed upon the brain. Small as it was, it was enough to prevent the success of the operation, and the case was relinquished, reluctantly enough, by the two physicians as one beyond their skill.
So, after long days and nights of patient nursing, during which Rosamond slowly recovered her strength, she was removed to the Louisiana Retreat for the Insane. The case was entered upon the books in the department for unknown and mysterious cases; the newspapers published a brief paragraph; but as no one knew the name of the stream in which the unknown woman had been found, neither of the parties concerned in regard to Rosamond Arleigh’s fate for a moment thought of connecting the heroine of the newspaper paragraph with Rosamond Arleigh.
And so the affair died away into silence, and in time it was no longer discussed.
In her cell at the retreat poor Rosamond sat in stolid silence day after day, staring out between the bars of the iron grating which shut out the world beyond. Nothing interested her; there was no gleam of intelligence left within her brain. She was a hopeless idiot, perfectly harmless, but incurable. So the wise physicians had decided.
The days came and went, and weeks glided into months, but still she lived on in her dreary, aimless existence, surely the most pitiful under the sun.
And away at her old home—The Oaks—poor Violet was mourning for her mother, whom she felt certain had perished in the treacherous waters, but whom the world believed to be lying in her little grave in the old green cemetery.
Violet felt that it would be better far to know that she was indeed sleeping in the grave, rather than to feel this dreadful and secret uncertainty as to her fate.
In the meantime, Dunbar had not been idle. He had haunted the country-side; passed hours near the bridge where the cloak and slippers had been discovered; interviewed every lumberman and laborer engaged in work near the spot; but all in vain.
It chanced that the negro, Clark, who had befriended Rosamond, had remained in New Orleans, having procured employment there; so there was no chance for Dunbar to encounter him—no way for the truth to become known.