as
possible. Mrs. Dinsmore, Elsie, Violet, and Rosie all came in in the
course of the afternoon and evening to ask how she did, and express the
hope that she would soon be quite well again, and to try to cheer her up.

They offered her companionship through the night; any one of them would
willingly sleep with her; but she said she was not timid and would prefer
to remain alone.

"Well, dear, I should feel a trifle easier not to have you alone," Elsie
said, as she bade her good-night, "but we will not force our company upon
you. None of us lock our doors at night, and my rooms are not far away;
don't hesitate to wake me, if you feel uneasy or want anything in the
night."

"Thank you, dear mamma," returned Zoe, putting her arms about her mother's
neck; "you are so good and kind! such a dear mother to me! I will do as
you say; if I feel at all timid in the night I shall run to your rooms and
creep into bed with you."

So they all left her, and the house grew silent and still.

It was the first night since her marriage that her husband had not been
with her, and she missed him more than ever. Besides, through the day she
had been buoyed up in a measure by the hope that he would send her a
note, a telegram, or some sort of message.

He had not done so, and the conviction that she had quite alienated him
from her grew stronger and stronger.

Again she indulged in bitter weeping, wetting her pillow with her tears as
she vainly courted sleep.

"He hates me now, I know he does, and will never love me again," she
repeated to herself. "I wish I didn't love him so. Ho said he was sorry he
couldn't give me my liberty, but I don't want it; but he wants to be rid
of me, or he would never have said that; and how unhappy he must be, and
will be all his life, tied to a wife he hates.

"I won't stay here to be a burden and torment to him!" she cried, starting
up with sudden determination and energy. "I love him so dearly that I'll
deliver him from that, even though it will break my heart; for oh, how
_can_ I live without him!"

She considered a moment, and (foolish child) thought it would be an act of
noble self-sacrifice, and also very romantic, to run away and die of a
broken heart, in order to relieve her husband of the burden and torment
she chose to imagine that he considered her.

A folly that was partly the effect of too much reading of sensational
novels, partly of physical ailment, for she was really feverish and il