Lucia caught her mother's hand.

"You have not, mamma, you must not go! Mr. Strafford, she cannot bear
the exertion."

"You do not know what I can bear, my child. Certainly this, if it is
needful or advisable."

"You will find it less trying in some ways than you perhaps expect," Mr.
Strafford went on, "and in others more so. There is nothing in the man
you will see to remind you of the past, and yet my great reason for
thinking it well for you to see him is a hope that you may be able to
recall the past to him, so as to bring him back to something like
clearness of comprehension. It seems as if nothing less would do so."

"What do you mean? Does not he know you?"

"I can scarcely tell. I do not know why I should not tell you plainly
the truth, which you will have to hear before you see him. His mind is
either completely gone, or terror and imprisonment have deadened it for
the time. The other men who have been working with him say that he was
sane enough when he was sober up to the time of the murder. Certainly he
is not sane now. But that may well be a temporary thing caused by his
illness and the confinement."

Mrs. Costello had covered her face with her hands.

"And you think," she said, looking up, "that the sight of me might bring
back his recollection. But is there anything to be gained by doing so if