good sense that convicted you! By the way, I believe you claimed the
horse which Morton found adrift on the road."

"Yes, sir, it was mine; at least I was riding it this morning when the
saddle-girth broke, and the mare got away from me."

"Then of course that was your saddle Blaisdell was running off with."

"Blaisdell?"

"One of our most dangerous patients, in fact, the only really dangerous
patient at present in the establishment. Yet you should hear HIM talk
sometimes! To-day, thank God, he happened to be in his ship-building
mood. Otherwise--I dare not think what he might have done. I should be
in despair if he had not been immediately retaken. Oddly enough, all the
poor creatures, except three, returned to the asylum of their own will,
after a brief ramble through the village."

"And the white-haired old gentleman who looked like a clergyman, is he
mad?"

"Mackenzie? Merely idiotic," replied the doctor, with the cool
professional air.

"And the young girl," asked Lynde hesitatingly, "is she"--

"A very sad case," interrupted Dr. Pendegrast, with a tenderer
expression settling upon his countenance. "The saddest thing in the
world."