One night when the planes had been over three times, the noise was so terrific that Dorothy suggested they go down into one of the ballrooms. They found English officers and ladies strolling about, calm in their English way, apparently not greatly concerned by the raid which was still going on. Dorothy, nervously watching, saw a lovely girl about her own age, come in. They looked at each other, at first without speaking. Then the girl said: “You are an American, aren’t you?” “Yes.” “So am I,” and they fell into each other’s arms. They spoke of the horrors of the raids—of the one then going on. Finally, Dorothy said: “One thing I’m thankful for, I’m soon going back home, and will get away from all this.” The girl’s eyes grew big. She said: “You are going back! And you are not afraid?” “Afraid? After all this? At least, if one is hit by a torpedo, it’s direct, and sure, and soon ended. In a raid like this, you never know.” But the girl said: “I can never imagine crossing the water again.” “Why?” “I was on the _Lusitania_, coming to England with a chaperon, to meet my fiancé. I clung to a deck-chair for four hours. My chaperon was drowned right beside me.” Dorothy, telling of it afterwards, said: “I did not know her name—I do not know it now. She never knew mine. She had a look in her eyes she will carry the rest of her days.” XIII “HEARTS OF THE WORLD” October found them safely home. After all their wish to get there, America seemed a poor place: uninteresting, flat, tepid, futile—its people had little idea of what was going on, “over there.” No wonder the returning soldiers could not settle down to a humdrum life of work. It was a thing next to impossible. Mary Gish and her daughters found their nerves on a tension. Blasting in the street made them jump. The strain had been terrible. Mrs. Gish had lost thirty-five pounds—she would never be quite the same again. Dorothy, by her own statement, had lost ten pounds. “Lillian is brave; besides, she couldn’t afford to lose. She gained a whole pound.” Lillian had no desire to go back, yet was sorry it was all over. Sometimes, looking back, it seemed to her that she had been dreaming. “Hearts of the World” was shown for a tryout at Pomona, California, on Monday, March 11, 1918, and during the rest of the week at Clune’s Auditorium, Los Angeles.