With the lawyer she went at once, identifying
him, as she did not the detective, with her brother Stevy. Mechanically,
she sat down by the kind doctor's chair, and seemed to recognize him,
although he did not remember her. After a few enquiries as to her
health, he took one of her hands in his, and, with the other, made
passes over her face, until she fell into the mesmeric sleep. "Your
husband, Mr. Rawdon, is dead," he said; "you remember that he died by
his own hand, and left you free." The woman gave a start, and seemed to
listen more intently. "You will kill nobody, hurt nobody, not even a
fly," he continued. "Do you remember?" Another start of comprehension
was made, but nothing more; so he went on: "You will read your Bible
and go to church on Sundays, and take care of your boy, and be just the
same to everybody as you were in the old days." Then, with a few counter
passes, he released her hand, and the poor woman told him all that he
had enjoined upon her, as if they were the resolutions of her own will.
She was not sane, but she was free from the vile slavery in which her
inhuman keeper had held her.
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