The first thing Annie had done on arriving at her London lodging had been to take off her wedding-ring and hide it away in a corner of her desk. She had given to the landlady the name “Miss Langton,” which she had resolved to adopt for the future. These were her first steps toward cutting herself off from her past life; the next was a bolder one. During these long weeks when she had lain ill in bed, she had pondered in her mind how she could live when she had left her husband, as she at the very beginning of her illness determined to do. One trial of the life of a governess had been enough for her, and she could not easily have re-entered it except in some sort under false pretenses. Besides, now that she had thrown herself upon her own resources, and stood once more alone in the world, her old ambitions had awakened within her, the old spirit cried out, the vague but strong consciousness of untried powers turned her thoughts to a career of art. One form of art alone seemed open to her--the stage. All that she knew, or almost all that she knew, of a theatrical life was distasteful to her, and her instinct would have led her to give herself up to writing. But she had already tried that, knew how hard it was even to get a hearing from the reading public, and cast aside the thought of literary distinction as taking too long to win. Of course, knowing nothing about the stage, she fell into the common error of thinking that talent made itself more quickly manifest there, and utterly ignored the fact that it is about as easy for a woman of high principles, without either money or interest, to attain a good position in a London theater as for a drummer-boy to become a general. She knew she would have to wait and to work before she found her way to the front rank; but how long that weary waiting would last, or how dull that work would be, she had not the least idea. She had unbounded faith in herself, she had energy, a little patience, and she believed herself to have talent, and her heart beat fast with the thought that she was now free to measure her strength against the world. As for the horror of her husband and the rest of the Braithwaites, if they ever came to hear of the step she had taken, why, she did not care for their opinion, and their disgust could not humiliate her. Besides, the fact of her having become an actress would effectually cut her off from them forever and prevent their trying to bring her back to them, a possibility too dreadful to be considered calmly.