In the little restaurant in Union Square which she frequented, her healthy young appetite would prompt her to order foods that when they arrived she would suddenly reject. She tried to guard against these nervous recurrences by resolutely permitting no thought of her yesterdays to crop into her to-days. Except, daily, she visited the Public Library, reading over St. Louis newspapers of last week's vintage, and never failing to glance at the death notices. For one week an advertisement under PERSONAL appeared, which every time she encountered it was sure to blur over her vision with quick tears: Lilly, come home. All is forgiven. She attributed some of her nervousness to the condition of mind this little paragraph invariably induced. To bear out this conviction she even omitted the visits to the Library for three or four days, but still the flashes of discomfort persisted. They had stopped at the stoop of her lean-looking rooming house. "So this is where you live," he said, half a smile out and his lids well down. "Yes," she said, unconsciously defiant, "and for my purpose it's fine." "No doubt." "Clean, quiet, and reasonable." "I see," he said through the same smile that was somehow hateful to her, and after a moment of apparent indecision raised his hat and walked off. The following evening, without waiting for the second refrain of chorus or the lights to flash up, and creating some confusion down in the orchestra, Lilly left the stage rather hurriedly, her hand groping ahead of her as if to ward off muzziness, and her very first step into the wings crumpled up quietly in a faint. She awoke in her little damp dungeon of a dressing room, a trick bicycle rider in sateen knickerbockers fanning her with a spangled jockey cap and immediately rushing off for her act, Robert Visigoth standing and looking down at her. Embarrassment flooded her. She insisted upon standing immediately, smoothing herself down and brushing at the wet spots where the water had trickled away from her lips. "Why," she said, through a gasp of apology, "of all things! Why, I have never done such a thing in my life! It was the heat. Oh, how silly of me! How unutterably silly!" He pressed her down into a chair. "You had better sit quiet there, my young miss, and get yourself together. One eighth of an inch nearer that bicycle trapeze in the wings and that smooth head of yours might not be so smooth right now." "I'm so ashamed." "I'll call a cab and take you home." "I'd rather you didn't trouble." "But I'd rather I did." She smiled through an impulse to dig her nails into her palms and weep her sense of ignominy. While he procured the cab she hurriedly changed from the pink into the coffee-colored linen, and, frightened at her pallor with the rouge removed, tried to pinch her cheeks back to pinkness. In the hansom and behind the wooden apron his hand crept over to hers, soothing it. "Poor little sick girl!" he said.