“And you saw my advertisement in this evening paper?”
“Yes, sir; Foley read it out to me. You begged M. C. C. to come back and help you because you were in great embarrassment and trouble—and you promised me nobody should harm me.”
“No more nobody shall!” returned Amos.
“But maybe you can’t help it. Never mind. When I heard about how they were talking about lynching him”—she indicated her nephew—“I felt terrible; the sin of blood guiltiness seemed to be resting on my soul; but I couldn’t help it. Mr. Sheriff, you don’t know I—I was once in—in an insane asylum. I was!”
“That’s all right,” said Amos. “I know all about that.”
“There, there, there!” murmured Mrs. Raker, “don’t think of it!”
“It wasn’t that they were cruel to me—they weren’t that. They never struck or starved me; they just gave me awful drugs to keep me quiet; and they made me sit all day, every day, week in, week out, month in, month out, on a bench with other poor creatures, who had enough company in their horrible dreams. If I lifted my hands there was some one to put them down to my side and say, in a soft voice, ‘Hush, be quiet!’ That was their theory—absolute rest! They thought I was crazy because I could see more than they, because I had visitors from the spirit-land—”
“I know,” interrupted Amos. “I was there one night. But I—”
“You couldn’t see them. It was only I. They came to me. It was more than a year after they all died, and I was so lonely—oh, nobody knows how desolate and lonely I was!—and then a medium came. She taught me how to summon them. At first, though I made all the preparations, though I put out the whist cards for uncle and Ralph and Sadie, and the toys for little Ro, I couldn’t seem to think they were there; but I kept on acting as if I knew they were there, and having faith; and at last they did come. But they wouldn’t come in the asylum, because the conditions weren’t right. So at last I felt I couldn’t bear it any longer. I felt like I was false to the heavenly vision; but I couldn’t stand it, and so I pretended I didn’t see them and I never had seen them; and whatever they said I ought to feel I pretended to feel, and I said how wonderful it was that I should be cured; and that made them right pleased; and they felt that I was quite a credit to them, and they wrote my sister that I was cured. I went home, but only to be suspected again, and so I ran away. I had put aside money before, thousands of dollars, that they thought that I spent. They thought I gave a heap of it to that medium and her husband; I truly only gave them five hundred dollars. So I went forth. I hid myself here. I was happy here, where they could come, until—until I saw Archibald Allerton on the street and overheard him inquiring for me. I was dreadfully upset. But I decided in a minute to flee again. So I drew some money out of the bank, and I bought a blue calico and a sun-bonnet not to look like myself; and I went home and wrote that letter I gave you, Mr. Sheriff, with my will and the money.”
“The parcel is unopened still,” said Amos. “I gave you my word, you know.”