Claude, and Evelyn, and I, had just been discussing a plan for
removing you to another asylum, where stricter discipline and less
luxurious externals are employed to conquer the otherwise unmanageable
inmates. Dr. Englehart, you know, holds up the theory of indulgence to
his patients, and I am rejoiced to find his measures have at last
prevailed over your frenzy. Mabel, like your other friends, believes you
dead, and is at home with Evelyn and Claude, and is growing in beauty
and intelligence every day.
"She was quite shocked at her uncle's wild behavior, and positively
refused to go with him, is fond of Mr. Gregory, and remembers you with
affection.
"Owing to my knowledge of your condition for the last year, my dear
child, I don't blame you for any thing that is past, not even for those
delusions with regard to my own acts and intentions which formed your
mania, nor for the misfortune and sense of shame which, no doubt, caused
your hasty flight, and whose evidences you brought with you from the
raft, in the shape of a nearly year-old child.
"I remain, faithfully yours,
"B.B."
The shameful accusations which brought the blood to my brow ought to
have been easier to bear than all the rest, because so easily confuted,
and because I knew not really believed; but they were not. The very idea
of shame humiliated me more than positive ill-treatment could have done;
and, spotless though I knew myself to be (as others knew me too--all I
loved and cared for), still my purity was shocked by such injustice.
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