Mrs. Faraday had risen and was holding out one firmly gloved hand. As she grasped it, Dorinda could feel the soft flesh beneath the deeply embedded buttons. "Then I'll look for you day after to-morrow," said the older woman in her sprightly tone. "Navy blue will look well on you with your hair and eyes," she added encouragingly. "I always liked blue eyes and black hair." Dorinda smiled up at her. "And now half my hair is gone. I must look a fright, and the scar isn't even hidden. I'll be marked all my life." "Oh, but your hair will come back thicker than ever. Even now your scalp is covered, and in a little while no one will know that there is a scar." She beamed down on the bed. "Here is the address. Have you a place you can put the card, so it won't slip away?" "I've got my purse under my pillow." As Dorinda drew out the little leather bag, and slipped the card into it, she thought wearily, "How funny it is that this should have happened to me." Since her illness, the whole of life, all she had gone through, all she saw around her, all feeling everywhere, appeared less tragic than ludicrous. Though her capacity for emotion was dead, some diabolical sense of humour had sprung up like, fireweed from the ruins. She could laugh at everything now, but it was ironic laughter. III Her first thought, when she opened her eyes the next morning, was that she was free to leave the hospital as soon as she pleased. If only she might have stayed there until she died, tranquil, indifferent, with nothing left but this sardonic humour. A little later, as she glanced at the other patients in the ward, at the woman who moaned incessantly and at the young girl, with flaming red hair, who had lost her leg in an accident, she told herself that there were people in the world who were worse off than she was. Through the high window she could see that the sky was clear, and that a strong breeze was blowing a flag on the top of a grey tower. She was glad it was not raining. It would have been a pity to go back into the world on a wet day. After she had had her breakfast, and a glib young doctor had given her some directions, she got out of bed and a pupil nurse helped her to dress. They had arranged, she discovered presently, that a friend of one of the other patients--the moaning woman, it soon appeared--should go with her as far as her lodging-house. That was the stranger's way also, and she had promised to see that Dorinda reached her room safely. "Do they know that you are coming?" "Yes, the nurse telephoned for me. I can get the sane room, and they've put my bag in it." "Well, I'll be glad to go with you," said the woman, a depressed-looking person, in rusty mourning. "You must be careful about crossing the street while you're so weak." "I don't feel as if I could walk a step," Dorinda answered, sinking into a chair while she dressed.