It was not often she spent her hoarded pennies for a paper, but a sudden desire to know the truth about the fearful epidemic seized her. She bought a paper, and turned to the general report column. Almost at once her eye caught the name of a town not far from where her father lived, with a report of three cases of cholera. She read on down the column, and suddenly her heart stood still with horror. "SLOANSVILLE [she read]. A man who gave his name as Harrington Winthrop died here last week of cholera. He was in an advanced stage of the disease when he arrived in a hired carriage, and died a few hours later. His father and brother were sent for and arrived before his death. This case has caused a panic among the negroes in the vicinity, and there have been a few suspicious cases of illness which are being carefully watched. Everything is being done to prevent a further spread of the disease. Dawn felt a sudden weakness, and hurried back to her wretched boarding place to lie down. She did not feel like eating any supper, though the old woman prepared some tea and toast and brought it up to her. Dawn lay panting on her hard little bed, and the hot breath of the night came in at her window, redolent of all the departed dinners of the neighborhood. A stench of garbage sometimes varied the atmosphere as the faint breeze died away, and the noises of a careless, happy-go-lucky community jangled all about her. She thought of the rules of cleanliness that had been laid down in the papers, and of the probability that they would not be carried out in this street. She pictured herself sick with cholera, with no one but the poor old woman to wait upon her, and no doctor. The smells, the awful smells, would be going on and on, and she would be unable to get up and get away from them. She thought of the hot, hot sun that would stream in at her curtainless window when the day broke again, and wondered why she had come to this terrible city, where there was no work, and no place in the world for a lonely pilgrim whom nobody wanted. Then over her rolled a deep relief at the thought that Harrington Winthrop would trouble her no more, though it seemed awful to rejoice in what must have been a terrible death. Yet it could not but make life freer for her, for she would have one thing less to fear. Gradually, as she thought about it, another fear seized her. Charles, his brother, her husband, had been with him when he died. Perhaps he too would take it and die, and she would never know, never see him again in this life. She would be left alone—alone in this awful world where she had no friends, and none to love her, save a poor boy to whose kind heart she had brought only pain. Why not go back to the neighborhood where Charles was? She need not let herself be known. She could surely find some secluded place where she could earn enough to keep her, yet where she might find out how he was, and maybe catch a glimpse of him now and then!