The lectures on the history of art followed their regular course; so also the meetings of the aid committee. The consumption of meringues glacés and cups of chocolate remained on about the same level, but enthusiasm for the cause markedly diminished. Not that Dr. Mälzer's subsequent lectures offered ground for disillusionment. Rich alike in substance and figures of speech, they never failed to win the same tense sympathy from the girls. But the plans for helping him had met with serious obstacles. The much-beloved Romeo had been engaged to perform in another city at the beginning of the autumn, the quartette had been refused permission to coöperate with the Selecta, and a permit from the police department was necessary for a house to house collection. None of the girls dared apply for it. Thus, the great life-preserving idea gradually petered out, terminating in a confectioner's bill, of which three marks eighty fell to Lilly's share. Lilly well knew the way to the pawnbroker's, and she did not have to pluck up courage before relinquishing the little gold cross that she wore about her neck, the last remnant of better days. Besides, it was all for his sake. Autumn came, and Dr. Mälzer grew worse. He coughed a great deal, each time putting his handkerchief to his mouth and then examining it furtively. One day the girls were told that the lectures on the history of art would be discontinued until further notice. Anna Marholz reported he had had a hemorrhage. Lilly did not stop to ask for an explanation of what that meant. "He's dying, he's dying!" was the cry in her soul. After dark she stole to his house (Anna Marholz had found his address in one of her father's books). A weary, green-shaded lamp was burning in his room. Not a shadow stirred, no hand appeared at the window-curtain. But the little lamp continued to burn patiently for hours and hours, despite its weariness, all the time that Lilly trotted up and down the damp street in front of his house, full of conscientious scruples for having robbed her toiling mother of her help. The adventure was repeated the following evenings, and anxiety waxed in Lilly's soul. She pictured him lying there gasping for breath, with no woman's hand to wipe the death sweat from his brow. On Saturday her solicitude drove her from her work-table early in the afternoon. To patrol his house in broad daylight was impossible, but she ventured to pass it once, and lacked the courage to return. Then she was seized by a heroic resolve. She went to the florist's shop, and sacrificing the two marks eighty left over from the transaction of the little cross, she walked back to his house with a brownish yellow bouquet of drooping autumn roses. Without stopping to think she ran up the steps, and rang at the door of the second story, where she had seen the green lamp. An old woman in a soiled blue apron and mumbling her lips opened the door. Lilly stammered Dr. Mälzer's name.