Now I find I am being held here as an insane patient.  I cannot get out.  I do not even know whether this letter will reach you.  But the chambermaid here has told me she will post it for me.

I am ill and nervous—­a wreck, but not insane, although they will tell you that the twilight-sleep treatment affected my mind.  But what is happening here will eventually drive me insane if some one does not come to my rescue.

Cannot you get in to see me as a doctor or friend?  I will leave all to you after that.

Yours anxiously,

Janet (Mrs. Roger) Cranston.

“What do you make of it yourself?” I returned, handing back the letter.  “Are you going to take it up?” He slowly looked over the letter again.

“Judging by the handwriting,” he remarked, thoughtfully, “I should say that the writer is laboring under keen excitement—­though there is no evidence of insanity on the face of it.  Yes; I think I’ll take up the case.”

“But how are you going to get in?” I asked.  “They’ll never admit you willingly.”

Kennedy pondered a minute.  “I’ll get in, all right,” he said, at length; “come on—­I’m going to call on Roger Cranston first.”

“Roger Cranston?” I repeated, dumfounded.  “Why, he’ll never help you!  Ten to one he’s in on it.”

“We’ll have to take a chance,” returned Kennedy, hurrying me out of the laboratory.

Roger Cranston was a well-known lawyer and man about town.  We found him in his office on lower Broadway.  He was young and distinguished-looking, which probably accounted for the fact that his office had become a sort of fashionable court of domestic relations.

“I’m a friend of Dr. Bolton Burr, of Montrose,” introduced Kennedy.  Cranston looked at him keenly, but Kennedy was a good actor.  “I have been studying some of the patients at the sanatorium, and I have seen Mrs. Cranston there.”

“Indeed!” responded Cranston.  “I’m all broken up by it myself.”

I could not resist thinking that he took it very calmly, however.

“I should like very much to make what we call a psychanalysis of Mrs. Cranston’s mental condition,” Kennedy explained.

“A psychanalysis?” repeated Cranston.

“Yes; you know it is a new system.  In the field of abnormal psychology, the soul-analysis is of first importance.  To-day, this study is of the greatest help in neurology and psychiatry.  Only, I can’t make it without the consent of the natural guardian of the patient.  Doctor Burr tells me that you will have no objection.”

Cranston thoughtfully studied the wall opposite.

“Well,” he returned, slowly, “they tell me that without treatment she will soon be hopelessly insane—­perhaps dangerously so.  That is all I know.  I am not a specialist.  If Doctor Burr—­” He paused.

“If you can give me just a card,” urged Kennedy, “that is all Doctor Burr wishes.”