Chapter XXI: “mad From Life’s History.”

The short, wintry day passed away. Mrs. Fielding, intent on the household tasks which she accomplished without the aid of a servant, was obliged to leave her patient alone many times, but on each occasion when she tip-toed back Nina still lay wrapped in that deep, lethargic sleep.

“I almost wish she would awaken--her sleep seems almost as deep as death,” murmured the little woman over and over to herself.

But when Nina wakened at last she was all alone in the pretty cheerful chamber, with its nameless air of comfort and refinement.

The lamp burned dimly under its clear, white shade, the fire leaped and glowed in the grate. Nina lay still for some moments gazing around her with large, dark, wondering eyes.

“Where am I?” she asked herself, vaguely, and the answer to her question came in a sudden rush of memory. She gave a shiver of horror and sprang upright in the bed.

“I remember now that I saw Doctor Fielding and his wife, my dear old teacher, in this room some time ago,” she thought. “But how came I here? Who took me out of the water, and how dared they do it, for I cannot, I will not endure my life. I have lost my husband whom I loved so dearly, and I cannot bear my life without him!”

She went to the window, drew back the crimson curtain, and looked down into the street. She saw that she was in a large city. There was a wide brick pavement under the window, and the flaring light of the gas lamps at the corners showed her wild drifts of whirling sleet and snow. It was a wild and terrible night. The keen, sharp wind tore fiercely around the corners, banging loose window shutters, and shrieking loudly as it held high carnival abroad. The streets were coated with sleet that shone with diamond brightness in the light. Nina gazed at it all with dull mechanical eyes. Her thoughts were of other things.

Doctor Fielding had been mistaken in his thought that she would repent her mad attempt at self destruction. He had not known the terrible motive power that urged her onward.

“I have been foiled once,” she murmured, “And so I have it all to do over again. I promised to give him all my love and all my life, and that meant I think that I must sacrifice my life for him if need be. And there is no other way, none! I never heard of a Selwyn being divorced. They could not have borne it. There is too much pride in the race. No, there is only one way for Talbot Strangemore to find his happiness, and that is by walking across my grave!”

Near the fire spread open over some chairs to dry, was the dark hood and cloak she had worn last night. Nina deliberately put them on again, opened the door and looked out into the narrow little entry. She saw and heard no one. Mrs. Fielding was in the kitchen keeping an appetizing supper warm for her guest when she should wake. Doctor Fielding had stepped out to see a patient in the neighborhood. The girl ran with light feet along the entry to the street door. The good doctor had carelessly left it unlocked. She opened it softly. In a minute more she was out in the night and the storm alone.

Blown hither and thither by the blinding storm, Nina pursued her way along the almost deserted streets. She came at last to a corner where the flaring lights, blue, red and green, of a drug-store, streamed athwart the stormy night. Without a moment’s hesitation, she ran into the store.

“A phial of laudanum, please,” she said to the sleepy clerk who stared in amazement at his beautiful unexpected customer, and she handed him a silver coin she had taken from a little pocket in her cloak.

“We do not sell poisons without a physician’s prescription,” he had said to her at first, then yielded and gave her the phial because in some adroit way she had conveyed to him the impression that she wished it to relieve a tooth-ache.

She caught it eagerly from his hand, and madly drained the last drop, then dashed wildly from the place. The horrified clerk ran after her, but the beautiful desperate girl had already disappeared from his sight like a shadow among the shadows of the inclement night.