I was arrested in Helsingfors. Tell Lydia where I am."
"Do you know Muriel Leithcourt?" I inquired by the same means, whereupon
she replied that they were at school together.
"Did you see me on board the _Lola_?" I wrote.
"Yes. But I could not warn you, although I had overheard their
intentions. They took me ashore when you had gone, to Siena. After three
days I found myself deaf and dumb--I was made so."
Her allegation startled me. She had been purposely afflicted!
"Who did it?"
"A doctor, I suppose. They put me under chloroform."
"Who?"
"People who said they were my friends."
I turned to the woman in the religious habit, and cried--
"Do you see what she has written? She has been maimed by some friends
who intended that the secret she holds should be kept. They feared to
kill her, so they bribed a doctor to deliberately operate upon her so
that she could neither speak nor hear. And now they are driving her to
suicide!"
"M'sieur, I am astounded!" declared the nun. "I have always believed
that she was not in her right mind, yet assuredly she seems to be as
sane as I am, only willfully mutilated by some pretended friend who
determined that no further word should pass her lips.
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