Unconsciously, scarcely daring to hope for it, he had thus won her love, and now that she was cast off by her family, a terrible temptation beset him to win her for his own. Not as Doctor Ludington, though, for he did not believe he could overcome the race hatred. Besides, there was now another terrible shadow between their hearts--the blood of her Cousin Terry on his hands! If he won her, it must be at the price of eternal renunciation of his family and name, but for such a prize he could count the world well lost. CHAPTER XVI. A FORMER SOUL-MATE. “But where can I go?” cried little Eva. Her face was a picture of wistful joy when she was first told that the doctors considered her cured of her mental malady, and that she was free to leave the asylum whenever she chose. She wept with relief, and murmured low some words of thanksgiving to God. Then her face clouded with perplexity as she cried: “But where can I go for shelter, branded with a scandal, though innocent of any wrongdoing? I have no friends, no home.” “You forget your rich father in New York,” suggested Doctor Merry, who had heard her story, and believed this would be her best refuge. She shook her head. “He was cruel to my mother, and he will never hear from me that she left him a daughter,” she said, with a little flash of spirit. “Quite right, Miss Somerville,” said the superintendent, coming up to them where they lingered in the beautiful grounds talking, and he added, with his most genial smile: “I shall be glad to make you one of the attendants here, if you wish to stay and earn your own living.” “I shall have to do that hereafter, so I accept your offer with thanks,” she replied instantly, in her relief at finding a home open to her, even though it was under the roof of a lunatic asylum. But she had met warm hearts here, dear and true friends, and their kindness was a balm to her pain. The middle-aged superintendent was kind and fatherly, the woman physician sisterly, the two young men doctors frank and sociable, as well as all the attendants. No one passed her with cold looks, or burned her heart with cruel words. They did not seem to remember that she was under a cloud, her fair name stained by scandal. She would stay here and work among them as long as she lived. “You may begin your new duties to-morrow. Come to me in my office early in the morning for assignment to a ward,” said Doctor St. Clair. Then they all slipped away to their duties, and she walked alone among the beautiful flowers and trees of the wide grounds, her heart swelling with gratitude that she need not go away out into the cold world, where no one believed in her innocence, and no one loved her any more.