For more than an hour after his departure, Salome lay back in her chair, weak and weary from her recent emotion and excitement, but happier than she had ever expected to be in this world. She was very pale, but a smile of peace was on her lips, and the light of a new joy shone in her eyes. “Who would have thought that such a blessed lot was in store for me when I came to this place of suffering, to toil for others, on that dreary day when I was so lonely, so friendless, and thought only of hiding myself from every one who had ever known me?” she mused, as she went over and over again in her mind every incident connected with that recent interview. She could hardly realize, even now, that she was to be the wife of that grand man; for grand she was sure he was in every sense of the word, although she knew comparatively nothing of him—nothing of his family nor what her life was to be in connection with them. She only knew that she loved him and trusted him implicitly; that life without him would not be worth an effort to prolong; but with him she felt that she could battle for it with all the power of her strong will. Already it almost seemed as if new vigor had been infused in her veins, and when the nurse brought up her dinner she felt really and thoroughly hungry for the first time during her illness, and she ate heartily, greatly to the delight of her attendant, who had taken especial pains to prepare something tempting and appetizing. About the middle of the afternoon Dr. Hunt made his appearance, and looked the astonishment he experienced upon seeing her toying with some pretty fancy work. “Well, well, well!” he exclaimed, and a gleam of amusement began to twinkle in his kind eyes. After counting her pulse, he playfully pulled one of her ears and inquired, with a roguish smile: “What is this you have been doing, my young lady?” and he assumed a tone of mock displeasure. “Allowing a strange doctor to come here and steal away one of my best nurses! Give an account of yourself, Miss Howland.” Salome blushed delightfully, and the sweetest little laugh in the world rippled over her lips and was real music in the doctor’s ears. “I don’t believe there will be any further shrinking of that heart,” he continued with a chuckle. “I no longer fear atrophy; on the contrary, I predict a fatal enlargement of that organ.” “Fatal?” repeated Salome, still blushing, but not quite comprehending his meaning. “Yes, fatal,” he answered, without changing a muscle of his countenance, “for Miss Howland will soon be no more.” “Oh,” breathed Salome, with renewed confusion, and darting an appealing glance at him as she made a gesture toward the nurse.