We must now return to Ida May, dear reader, and the thrilling experiences the poor girl was passing through in the lonely stone house on the river-road.

Owing to the drug which was being constantly administered to her, from the hour she crossed the threshold Ida knew little or nothing of what was going on in the outside world.

The days lengthened into weeks, and the weeks into months.

Her remittances came regularly; still, the "doctor" of the sanitarium was heartily sick of his bargain. He dared not refuse Nannie Rogers' request to keep her there, for reasons which would put him behind the prison bars had they reached the ears of the authorities.

When he saw the girl grow whiter and more fragile with each passing day, his alarm increased.

In this horrible place Ida May wore out four long and weary months of her young life.

They had long since ceased giving her the drug. It was unnecessary now to waste any more of it upon her.

When Ida May's mind slowly cleared, and a realization of what was going on about her came to her, she looked in the greatest astonishment at the strange[98] apartment and the grim-faced woman who was bringing food to her.

"Where am I, and who are you?" she asked. "Oh, I remember! I swooned on the steps of the boarding-house. Did he have me brought here?"

"Yes," retorted the doctor's sister, thinking that the better way of stopping all questioning.

A bitter cry of horror rose to Ida May's lips.

"Then I must go away from here at once!" she declared, attempting to gain her feet.

But she was so weak that she staggered and would have fallen had not the woman sprung forward and saved her.

"Don't go on in that way," said the woman, brusquely. "You are to remain here until you are—well. It won't be over a fortnight longer. You've been here some time."

"But I will not remain here!" exclaimed Ida May, excitedly. "I shall leave at once!"

The woman turned the key in the lock, coolly removed it, and slipping it into her pocket, remarked:

"This is a sanitarium. It is not for patients to say when they shall leave here. That is the doctor's business.&quo............