Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter where, only away as quickly as possible. She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty _divorcees_ who congregate together in such places like apples rotting in heaps, by Chilian attaches and agents of mysterious businesses in Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table. After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station and ladylike dignity. This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door. So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would never sink so low, because she was labelled all over "Generalin," and wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme gentility. On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fraeulein von Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It ran: "Gracious Friend, "I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the Atlantic as head-waiter.