Back in New York, with another hard siege of rehearsing, before the opening there. Griffith, as was his custom each winter, had taken his company to Los Angeles, Dorothy with them. Lillian, to save money, lived in a tiny room at the Marlton Hotel, in 8th Street, and with a Sterno lamp, cooked her food, which consisted of tinned things and tea. Weakened as she undoubtedly was by her fall, this was but poor nourishment on which to meet Belasco’s strenuous rehearsals. January 8 (1913), she wrote: It is now 3:30 in the morning of Wednesday, and I have just returned from a dress rehearsal. We open tonight, and everything has to be just so; we rehearsed until 4:30 yesterday morning. Nell, I don’t know how to thank you for what you have offered me. You both can’t know how wonderful it is to have someone offer me a home, and how I would love to follow the desire of my heart and come to you. But I can’t. I can’t, because I have to make my way in this world from now on. Mother has worked all her life; surely, it’s my turn, now.... The picture you painted for me in your letter made me cry, because I was reading it in my dressing-room, and I happened to glance up at a mirror, and there I sat, all false, with paint and cosmetics covering my face, and it came to me what a distance it was from my life to yours. Mary was getting a good salary, and had bought her mother a car. Lillian said to her, one day: “How happy you must be, Mary, to be able to give your mother so much.” Her own weekly twenty-five dollars went such a little way. The room—one had to have a decent address—took so much of it ... and clothes—one must make a decent appearance—and the extras! A new coat ... a mistake ... it looked well, but was not warm enough. She was far from well, and knew it. Mrs. Pickford and Mary insisted on her seeing a doctor, who told them that she was threatened with pernicious anemia, and would die if she did not change her mode of living. They spoke about it to Belasco, who offered to send her to Florida at his own expense. When he learned that Griffith had offered her work on the coast, at double her present salary, he at once agreed to pay her fare to Los Angeles. She hung on until the end of January—postponed until she was warned that unless she went at once, it would be too late. They did not tell her, but they were by no means certain that it was not too late already. So she surrendered. Belasco bought her ticket to Los Angeles; her mother was already on the way out there. Dorothy wrote of glorious California sunshine. It made her better to think of it. And then, at the end, a tragedy: The eighteen strong Germans who pulled the wires, and adored her, went to the train with their own little brass band, to say good-bye. Ah, me, she had somehow told them the wrong station ... a heartbreak ... one that could not be mended.