She slept long and profoundly.  She slept through many brief stoppages and startings at the little way stations.  She slept until she was rudely awakened by the uproar incident upon the arrival of the train at a large town.

She awoke in confusion.  Day was dawning.  Many passengers were leaving the train.  Many others were getting on it.

She rubbed her eyes and looked around in amazement and terror.  She did not in the least know where she was, or how she had come there.

For during her deep and dreamless sleep she had utterly forgotten the occurrences of the last twenty-four hours.

Now she was rudely awakened, bewildered, and frightened to find herself in a strange scene, amid alarming circumstances, of which she knew or could remember nothing; connected with which she only felt the deep impression of some heavy preceding calamity.  She saw before her the three silent, black, shrouded forms of her fellow-passengers, but their presence, instead of enlightening, only deepened and darkened the gloomy mystery.

She pressed her icy fingers to her hot and throbbing temples, and tried to understand the situation.

Then memory flashed back like lightning, revealing all the desolation of her storm-blasted, wrecked and ruined life.

With a deep and shuddering groan she threw her hands up to her head, and sank back in her seat.

“Is Madame ill?  Can we do anything to help her?” inquired a kindly voice near her.

In her surprise Salome dropped her hands, and at the same time her vail fell from before her face.

Suddenly she then saw that the three mute, shrouded forms before her were Sisters of Mercy, in the black robes of their order, and knew that they had only maintained silence in accordance with their decorous rule of avoiding vain conversation.

Even now the taller and elder of the three had spoken only to tender her services to a suffering fellow-creature.

The fugitive bride and the Sister of Mercy looked at each other, and at the instant uttered exclamations of surprise.

In the sister, Salome recognized a lay nun of the Convent of St. Rosalie, in which she had passed nearly all the years of her young life, and in which she had received her education, and to which it had once been her cherished desire to return and dedicate herself to a conventual service.

In Salome the nun saw again a once beloved pupil, whom she, in common with all her sisterhood, had fondly expected to welcome back to her novitiate.

“Sister Josephine!  You!  Is it indeed you!  Oh, how I thank Heaven!” fervently exclaimed the fugitive.

“Mademoiselle Laiveesong!  You here!  My child!  And alone!  But how is that possible?” cried the good sister in amazement.

Before Salome could answer the guard opened the door with a party of passengers at his back.  But seeing the compartment already well filled by the three Sisters of Mercy and another lady, he closed the door again and passed down the platform to find places for his party elsewhere.