With little space for thought she was, rapidly driven to the railway
station, and conveyed to the Hospital for Lunatic Criminals. It was only
when she was within this vast and grim abode of madness that she realized
the horror of her situation. It was only when she was received by the
kind physician and read pity in his eyes, and saw his look of hopeless
incredulity when she attempted to tell him that she was not insane; it
was only when she passed through the ward to which she was consigned and
saw the horrible creatures, the victims of a double calamity, whose
dreadful faces she was hereafter to see daily, and was locked into the
small, bare room that was to be her home, that all her fortitude forsook
her. She sank upon the bed, as soon as she was left alone--she had been
searched by the matron--and tried to think. But her brain was in a
whirl. She recalled Braham's speech, she recalled the testimony
regarding her lunacy. She wondered if she were not mad; she felt that
she soon should be among these loathsome creatures. Better almost to
have died, than to slowly go mad in this confinement.
--We beg the reader's pardon. This is not history, which has just been
written. It is really what would have occurred if this were a novel.
If this were a work of fiction, we should not dare to dispose of Laura
otherwise. True art and any attention to dramatic proprieties required
it.
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