“I forbid you to go into church at all, or to speak to any one, unless it is absolutely necessary; but of course you will do as you like about it.”
My first thought was, “What a blessing! for I shall get a little peace now!” I was in peace for two days, and, if I asked questions about my work or anything, the sisters all smiled graciously, and nodded their heads, or replied, “yes.” After two days had passed, I began to wonder whether I really was mad or not. This thought took such hold upon me that I would sit for hours with my head in my hands, wondering if I had really lost my reason. The thought drove sleep from me, and, in fact, was slowly driving me really mad. I asked that new sister (L⸺ W⸺, from Devonshire) if she thought I was mad. She told me she did not think me so; but I supposed that perhaps she only said this to please and humour me, according to the instructions given by the Mother Superior. She assured me, however, that she really knew I was not mad. In spite of this assurance, my mind was in as much doubt as before, and I arrived at the conclusion that if I was not already mad, I soon should be, with this awful doubt on my mind.
I again asked leave to go, and the reverend Mother replied before them all:
“I have nowhere to send you; directly I have, you shall go.”
“But,” I replied, “I want to go to my sister.”
Turning to the chapter again, she said:
“I assure you I only keep her here out of love. She is a poor child, without a friend in the world, entirely dependent on my charity, and that of the reverend Father.”
A strange suspicion was now borne into my mind, from what the Mother Superior had said about sending me away when she had a place to send me, that she was actually trying to drive me mad, and would then send me to a lunatic asylum. Hence arose my final decision to leave the convent at any cost.