arrying out this plan.

Since she had lost her last hope of tracing her sister, all the
activities of her lonely imagination had been concentrated on the
possibility of Evelina's coming back to her. The discovery of Ramy's
secret filled her with dreadful fears. In the solitude of the shop
and the back room she was tortured by vague pictures of Evelina's
sufferings. What horrors might not be hidden beneath her silence? Ann
Eliza's great dread was that Miss Mellins should worm out of her what
she had learned from Mr. Loomis. She was sure Miss Mellins must have
abominable things to tell about drug-fiends--things she did not have
the strength to hear. "Drug-fiend"--the very word was Satanic; she
could hear Miss Mellins roll it on her tongue. But Ann Eliza's own
imagination, left to itself, had begun to people the long hours with
evil visions. Sometimes, in the night, she thought she heard herself
called: the voice was her sister's, but faint with a nameless terror.
Her most peaceful moments were those in which she managed to convince
herself that Evelina was dead. She thought of her then, mournfully but
more calmly, as thrust away under the neglected mound of some unknown
cemetery, where no headstone marked her name, no mourner with flowers
for another grave paused in pity to lay a blossom on hers. But this
vision did not often give Ann Eliza its negative relief; and always,
beneath its hazy lines, lurked the dark conviction that Evelina was
alive, in misery and longing for her.

So the summer wore on. Ann Eliza was conscious that Mrs. Hawkins and
Miss Mellins were watching her with affectionate anxiety, but the
knowledge brought no comfort. She no longer cared what they felt or
thought about her. Her grief lay far beyond touch of human healing, and
after a while she became aware that they knew they could not help her.
They still came in as often as their busy lives permitted, but their
visits grew shorter, and Mrs. Hawkins always brought Arthur or the baby,
so that there should be something to talk about, and some one whom she
could scold.

The autumn came, and the winter. Business had fallen off again, and but
few purchasers came to the little shop in the basement. In January Ann
Eliza pawned her mother's cashmere scarf, her mosaic brooch, and the
rosewood what-not on which the clock had always stood; she would
have sold the bedstead too, but for the persistent vision of Evelina
returning weak and weary, and not knowin