The lawyer was not satisfied yet. "Excuse me if I venture on making
another inquiry," he persisted. "Do you propose to visit the madhouse in
consequence of any wish expressed by the late Mr. Wagner?"

"Certainly not! My husband always avoided speaking to me on that
melancholy subject. As you have heard, he even left me in doubt whether
he was one of the governing body at the asylum. No reference to any
circumstance in his life which might alarm or distress me ever passed his
lips." Her voice failed her as she paid that tribute to her husband's
memory. She waited to recover herself. "But, on the night before his
death," she resumed, "when be was half waking, half dreaming, I heard him
talking to himself of something that he was anxious to do, if the chance
of recovery had been still left to him. Since that time I have looked at
his private diary; and I have found entries in it which explain to me
what I failed to understand clearly at his bedside. I know for certain
that the obstinate hostility of his colleagues had determined him on
trying the effect of patience and kindness in the treatment of mad
people, at his sole risk and expense. There is now in Bethlehem Hospital
a wretched man--a friendless outcast, found in the streets--whom my noble
husband had chosen as the first subject of his humane experiment, and
whose release from a life of torment he had the hope of effecting through
the influence of a person in authority in the Royal Household. You know
already that the memory of my husband's plans and wishes is a sacred
memory to me. I am resolved to see that poor chained creature whom he
would have rescued if he had lived; and I will certainly complete his
work of mercy, if my conscience tells me that a woman should do it."

Hearing this bold announcement--I am almost ashamed to confess it, in
these enlightened days--we all three protested. Modest Mr. Hartrey was
almost as loud and as eloquent as the lawyer, and I was not far behind