Kathleen was so weak that it tired her now even to write a letter, and the pen dragged wearily before she finished the recital of her sorrows, and pleaded with these unknown kin to let her come to them just for a little while--until she was strong enough to go out into the wide, cruel world and earn her own living with those weak, white hands. CHAPTER XXXI. KATHLEEN'S WEARY WAITING. Oh! you tangled my life in your hair; 'Twas a silken and golden snare, But so gentle the bondage my soul did implore The right to continue your slave evermore. MILES O'REILLY. Teddy Darrell sent up a doctor to see Kathleen, and he was startled when he found that the young girl was suffering from arsenical poisoning. "It is quite well that you sent for me, because if this had gone any further, she might have died. But I will go at once to work to remove the effects of the poison from her system," Doctor Spicer said, gravely. Mrs. Stone was shocked, but she readily comprehended that the woman Fedora had placed the deadly drug in Kathleen's food, intending to compass her death by slow degrees. What mystified her was the woman's motive. Kathleen, while confiding the rest of her harrowing story to these kind friends, Teddy Darrell and his cousin, had withheld the story of Ralph Chainey's connection with her trouble. She could not bring herself to mention his name. Something in her heart pleaded mutely for the culprit. What if the woman had lied to her? What if she had been lured from Ralph by a cunning ruse? Her brain reeled sometimes with this suspicion, and she felt that she should go mad with the miserable uncertainty of it all. Where was Ralph? Oh, if she could only see him--find out the real truth! So she did not tell her friends anything about Ralph, and Mrs. Stone had no clew to the mystery of this attempt on her life. "She does not dream of it, and perhaps it will be as well not to tell her, she has already suffered so much through her unknown foes," thought the kind lady. Several weeks passed, and Kathleen began to grow stronger and better under the physician's treatment, but in all this time no reply to her letter to her Southern relatives had been received. Neither had the fact of Kathleen's return to Boston ever transpired among her former friends in the city. Mrs. Carew was the only one who knew that Kathleen really lived, and it was to her interest to keep it a secret. Teddy Darrell remained silent on the subject, because the natural selfishness of a lover made him wish to keep away all other lovers until he had had his own chance "To win or lose it all."