A coachman awaits. The asylum looms behind him. He absently feeds parchment into the quiet pond. His Lord approaches.

“What paper were you reading?”

“M’Lord. It was the commitment orders for that classless servant boy.”

“You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?”

“Philosopher Finy has seen her to the clinic.”

“If Maud falls victim to some evil taig disea— Oh! Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! I’ve had him thrown into room sixty-one, never to be missed!”

“Sir, you speak nobly. You’ve handled this most discretely.”

“True, my good boy.”

A piggish man guides a timid and cold eyed girl of seventeen down steep stairs.

“M’Lord, philosopher Finy and Maud.”

“First let me talk with this philosopher, ready the carriage.”…“Ah, Dr., her continence has been restored?”

“Sir, she hasn’t spoken since the procedure.”

“You mean, she made no verbal question?”

“The laudanum, sir.”

“She’s pale as a pearl!”

Next to floating parchment, Maud taps her pewter heart and utters her last poem.

“Look, sir, I bleed.”