She had, indeed, at first, thought she would wait for one, then she told herself that she never could bear to read it when it came; for she believed he would never have told her to go away from the beautiful home to which he had brought her if he meant to ratify the union between them. She felt that it would dethrone her reason to be told that, since there was no legal bond, he thought it best for them to part, and then perhaps offer to settle a sum of money upon her to atone for the disappointment and wrong. She had read of such a case only a little while before, and, in her excited state, imagined that her fate would be but a repetition of that sad story. And so she had told herself that she could not stay to be so humiliated—she would not remain in a family where she was not wanted—it would be better to sever all ties, and go at once. “I will stay here and rest until I get stronger, and then I will go back to my former work, as nurse in one of the hospitals,” she mused while thinking over her future. “If I cannot be happy myself—and everything seems opposed to it, I can at least try to do some good in the world by ministering to others. It seems as if fate has ordained that I shall be a nurse in spite of everything.” She thought, at first, of returning to Boston, and of applying again at the hospital there. But she shrank from having the superintendent, good Dr. Hunt, and the nurses with whom she had been associated, know of her blighted hopes. She had money, for she had spent little of the sum which Dr. Winthrop had given her, and so she told herself that she might rest as long as she wished, before taking up her work again—might take plenty of time to school herself to meet and bear the struggle before her. Then came that terrible experience by fire—an ordeal which she would never forget. She had retired very early that night, for she had been suffering all day from a nervous headache; but she did not go to sleep readily—indeed, she seemed to grow more nervous and strangely restless, after extinguishing her light. She bore it as long as she could, then arose and took an anodyne. Fifteen minutes later, she was sleeping soundly—far too soundly for her own good, for she heard nothing of what was going on around her, when the alarm of fire was given. She had a strange dream, however. She thought that she was back again in her beautiful home; that she was sleeping in her own pretty curtained bed, when she was suddenly awakened and found Madame Winthrop and Evelyn standing over her, the latter holding her hands, while the former bound and gagged her. She struggled and fought against them, but all to no purpose, for they were much stronger than she, and then all at once a sense of suffocation came over her, and she really awoke, to find her room full of smoke and herself gasping for breath.