With difficulty, as if she were drawing up a hundred pound weight, Lilly raised her left hand, and laid it on his hard, crisp hair, which sank under the light touch like a cushion. He stopped rocking abruptly, looked about on all sides uneasily, and coughed a little. "Why, yes," he said after a pause. "That's good advice. If I want to make a pleasant impression in my new position--" As he spoke he turned to the window, causing her hand to slip down on his neck. Lilly swallowed a sigh, and he jumped up to take leave. She was too embarrassed to invite him to remain. The maid was already standing outside with a lamp to light his way down the stairs. "Day after to-morrow!" Lilly called to him from the window. He nodded up his thanks, and disappeared in the dark. Poor, poor fellow! Engulfed in bitterness and despondency, he walked away little divining what happy gardens blossomed about him. The rest of the evening Lilly was absorbed in anxious, confused thoughts. "I ought not to have laid my hand on his head," she said to herself. Nevertheless she was glad she had. * * * * * The next morning a postal card came from Mrs. Jula saying she had gotten word from "up there." Everything was proceeding smoothly. Lilly's protégé was to enter his position immediately. Money for his travelling expenses had already been forwarded to him. Lilly wept tears of joy. Her work was complete. Her girlhood friend had been saved and won back to life. With work and effort, with deception and fear she had made him her own. And when he came the next evening, as had been arranged, she would tell him all: that about her loving him when she was a girl--everything. And once again--before parting--she would lay her hand on his mass of hair. Then what would might follow. The next evening she exercised greater care in dressing than was her wont when she and Fritz Redlich were together. She herself had cooked his potato soup and cut the right amount of beefsteak for him--he no longer devoured such huge portions. All the maid had to do was put it in the saucepan. The clock struck eight. He had not come. "He's busy packing," she comforted herself. The clock struck ten. Hopeless. He was not coming. But perhaps he was standing on the street outside the locked door clapping the way Richard sometimes did. Lilly remained leaning out of the window until the clock struck eleven. Then she went to bed sad and weary. The next morning she received the following letter: "My dear Mrs. Czepanek:-- After I have succeeded through my own efforts in establishing a livelihood for myself, I deem it my duty to terminate my former life, which, as I pointed out to you several times, too frequently forced me into circumstances conflicting with my principles. My firm character was led into temptations from which, I will candidly confess, it did not always emerge intact.