She had not given a thought to Truman Winthrop’s position in life nor to the possibility of his having a family who might not approve of his choice of a wife, and she became quite troubled in spirit. His family was a very wealthy one—Dr. Hunt had said—consequently they were liable to be a very proud family. Would they be willing to receive a poor young nurse as the bride of the aristocratic and brilliant physician? She had nothing to give him in return for the wealth and position he would bestow on her, but her true love and a very weak and insufficient hand; while he, situated as he was, might have won almost any one, from the higher walks of life, to be his wife. More than this, there were certain circumstances connected with her own life which she had forgotten to tell him, during the excitement of his proposal—indeed, he had given her no opportunity to do so, in his eagerness to gain her consent—but which might make him hesitate to marry her. “I must tell him,” she murmured with a troubled brow. “I ought to have told him before he bound himself to me. I must not allow him to sacrifice himself nor his future interests. I must not run the risk of alienating him from his family; I love him far too well to wish to mar his life in any way.” But these thoughts and resolutions made her very nervous and anxious, and when Dr. Winthrop came again late in the afternoon, as he had promised, he found her excited and feverish. “What is it—what troubles you, Salome?” he inquired as he took her hot, dry hand and was startled by the almost spasmodic twitching of her small fingers. “I have been thinking—I have something to tell you—I ought to have told you before, all about myself and my family——” she began tremulously. “Hush!” he commanded, with gentle authority, “you shall tell me nothing while you are in this state; you are not even to think of anything that annoys you——” “But——” “I care nothing about your genealogy or previous history just now,” he said, stopping her short; then added, “I am sure there can be nothing connected with either for which you have cause to blush.” “No, indeed!” interposed Salome, with a proud uplifting of her small head, a smile of conscious rectitude curling her lips. “As a child I was very tenderly reared; I had every advantage, I was happy, beloved, and while my mother lived there was not a more harmonious family in the world; but—later——” a shiver ran over her as certain painful memories suddenly arose.