The lady looked at her husband, and after a moment’s hesitation said, “Wasn’t it to the Shaws?” “Great Heavens! then I have seen her without knowing her,” I exclaimed. My heart thumped in its beating, and cold chills raced over me. They probably attributed this to my excitement, at suddenly hearing of my long-lost sister. And I, what did I think, or what didn’t I think? That villain of a magistrate leaving the station, and the sudden disappearance of the governess, my sister! We shook hands, but I hardly knew when my newly made friends left me. Horror of horrors! To have been so near and yet not known her, and that cursed old Englishman talking about her as he did, and how could I think it, leading her astray! My sister! As long as she was somebody else’s sister, how little I cared, but now when she was my sister? How could I think of it? How endure it? I went to some hotel, I cared not where. I had no desire for dinner. I could not sleep or rest, but walked the floor. What a never ending night it was! The moments grew into hours, and the hours into days, before the morning broke. It seemed as if I was under the curse of Heaven. Born under a curse, with trouble enough already to have broken my heart, when would it end? Would this be my lot until death released me? What maddening thoughts I had during that long never ending night! It seemed as if my heart would burst and my brain go mad in anger and despair. I forgot my business and took the first train for home, and the journey seemed eternal. At last I reached home, so thoroughly exhausted that I felt and knew that I must rest and sleep or die. I ate some food without tasting it, and then yielding, I slept, for nature could endure no more. Ah! what would become of us if we could not sleep! What a hell of anguish and despair would we be in without it? Yet I awoke as if from some terrible dream, of demons, fiends, with horrible forms and faces and some accursed men wrangling and fighting over a beautiful innocent childlike girl, with none to help her, neither God above, nor angels, nor women, or men. I awoke so terrified that I could not realize my own self. I felt that I was absent, gone away and had to come back to myself. It was some minutes of time before I recovered from that fearful state, and then I became calm, for I began to reason about the folly of wasting my strength when I might need it so much. I compelled myself by my will to be quiet, and partook of breakfast.