third week I was able to sit up and was occasionally taken out of doors
But each day, and especially during the hours of the night, my
delusions increased in force and variety. The world was fast becoming
to me a stage on which every human being within the range of my senses
seemed to be playing a part, and that a part which would lead not only
to my destruction (for which I cared little), but also to the ruin of
all with whom I had ever come in contact. In the month of July several
thunder-storms occurred. To me the thunder was "stage" thunder, the
lightning man-made, and the accompanying rain due to some clever
contrivance of my persecutors. There was a chapel connected with the
hospital--or at least a room where religious services were held every
Sunday. To me the hymns were funeral dirges; and the mumbled prayers,
faintly audible, were in behalf of every sufferer in the world but one.

It was my eldest brother who looked after my care and interests during
my entire illness. Toward the end of July, he informed me that I was to
be taken home again. I must have given him an incredulous look, for he
said, "Don't you think we can take you home? Well, we can and will."
Believing myself in the hands of the police, I did not see how that was
possible. Nor did I have any desire to return. That a man who had
disgraced his family should again enter his old home and expect his
relatives to treat him as though nothing were changed, was a thought
against which my soul rebelled; and, when the day came for my return, I
fought my brother and the doctor feebly as they lifted me from the bed.
But I soon submitted, was placed in a carriage, and driven to the house
I had left a month earlier.

For a few hours my mind was calmer than it had been. But my new-found
ease was soon dispelled by the appearance of a nurse--one of several
who had attended me at the hospital. Though at home and surrounded by