“Thank you, dear mamma,” returned Zoe, putting her arms about her mother’s neck; “you are so good and kind! such a dear mother to me!  I will do as you say; if I feel at all timid in the night I shall run to your rooms and creep into bed with you.”

So they all left her, and the house grew silent and still.

It was the first night since her marriage that her husband had not been with her, and she missed him more than ever.  Besides, through the day she had been buoyed up in a measure by the hope that he would send her a note, a telegram, or some sort of message.

He had not done so, and the conviction that she had quite alienated him from her grew stronger and stronger.

Again she indulged in bitter weeping, wetting her pillow with her tears as she vainly courted sleep.

“He hates me now, I know he does, and will never love me again,” she repeated to herself.  “I wish I didn’t love him so.  Ho said he was sorry he couldn’t give me my liberty, but I don’t want it; but he wants to be rid of me, or he would never have said that; and how unhappy he must be, and will be all his life, tied to a wife he hates.

“I won’t stay here to be a burden and torment to him!” she cried, starting up with sudden determination and energy.  “I love him so dearly that I’ll deliver him from that, even though it will break my heart; for oh, how can I live without him!”

She considered a moment, and (foolish child) thought it would be an act of noble self-sacrifice, and also very romantic, to run away and die of a broken heart, in order to relieve her husband of the burden and torment she chose to imagine that he considered her.

A folly that was partly the effect of too much reading of sensational novels, partly of physical ailment, for she was really feverish and ill.

She did not pause to decide where she would go, or to reflect how she could support herself.  Were not all places alike away from the one she so dearly loved? and as to support she had a little money, and would not be likely to live long enough to need more.

Perhaps Edward would search for her from a sense of duty—­she knew he was very conscientious—­but she would manage so that he would never be able to find her; she would go under an assumed name; she would call herself Miss, and no one would suspect her of being a married woman running away from her husband.  Ah, it was not altogether a disadvantage to be and look so young!

And when she should find herself dying, or so near it that there would not be time to send for Edward, she would tell some one who she really was, and ask that a letter should be written to him telling of her death, so that he would know he wus free to marry again.

Marry again!  The thought of that shook her resolution for a moment.  It was torture to imagine the love and caresses that had been hers lavished upon another woman.

But, perhaps, after his unhappy experience of married life, he would choose to live single the rest of his days.  He had his mother and sisters to love, and could be happy without a wife.