Toward spring a lady who was expecting a baby took up her
abode at the Mendoza Family Hotel, and through the friendly
intervention of Miss Mellins the making of some of the baby-clothes
was entrusted to Ann Eliza. This eased her of anxiety for the
immediate future; but she had to rouse herself to feel any sense of
relief. Her personal welfare was what least concerned her.
Sometimes she thought of giving up the shop altogether; and
only the fear that, if she changed her address, Evelina might not
be able to find her, kept her from carrying out this plan.

Since she had lost her last hope of tracing her sister, all
the activities of her lonely imagination had been concentrated on
the possibility of Evelina's coming back to her. The discovery of
Ramy's secret filled her with dreadful fears. In the solitude of
the shop and the back room she was tortured by vague pictures of
Evelina's sufferings. What horrors might not be hidden beneath her
silence? Ann Eliza's great dread was that Miss Mellins should worm
out of her what she had learned from Mr. Loomis. She was sure Miss
Mellins must have abominable things to tell about drug-fiends--
things she did not have the strength to hear. "Drug-fiend"--the
very word was Satanic; she could hear Miss Mellins roll it on her
tongue. But Ann Eliza's own imagination, left to itself, had begun
to people the long hours with evil visions. Sometimes, in the
night, she thought she heard herself called: the voice was her
sister's, but faint with a nameless terror. Her most peaceful
moments were those in which she managed to convince herself that
Evelina was dead. She thought of her then, mournfully but more
calmly, as thrust away under the neglected mound of some unknown
cemetery, where no headstone marked her name, no mourner with
flowers for another grave paused in pity to lay a blossom on hers.