The next morning on awaking Lilly began to worry anew. Nobody was so blind as not to detect, on coming closer how worm-eaten was her existence. Least of all he whose fine feelings vibrated under each spiritual touch and awoke an anxious echo in her soul. Even if it were possible for her to create a sort of island on which she might prevent him from coming into contact with her world, wasn't her very appearance a traitor? All those mad nights could not have passed over her without leaving traces. Two years before Dr. Salmoni had already remarked a change in her appearance. "A cold, disdainful look," he had said. She jumped from bed, and ran to the mirror to subject every feature to suspicious scrutiny. Her eyes had grown tired. There was no disputing that. But they did not look disdainful. "Virgin Mary eyes," Dr. Rennschmidt had said, not "Madonna eyes." Was there a difference? On her brow were faint cobwebby lines; but she could well-nigh rub them away with her finger. "They will disappear with a little massaging," she said to herself. But the deep grooves on either side of her mouth were bad. They gave her face a haughty, satiated expression. "The paths that consuming passion long has trod," she quoted from "Tannhäuser in Rom," which she knew almost by heart. And yet--had she not preserved her noblest, her profoundest feelings? As if to save them up for this One, and now that the One had come, it was too late perhaps. She spent the day in misery, and when Richard came for his tea, he found red eyes. That afternoon proved to her clearly what she possessed in Richard. He asked so few questions, and was so sympathetic and full of solicitude, that for a moment or two she felt comforted and secure. She almost succumbed to the temptation to tell him a little about her new acquaintance, as was right between two such good friends. Fortunately she resisted the impulse. Rather let Adele into the secret, who had several times observed encouragingly: "You may trust me fully. I know life far too well not to take the lady's side." Wishing to avoid "the whole crew," as she dubbed the circle of her friends, Lilly pled sickness, and Richard rested satisfied. In the evening it occurred to her she had told Dr. Rennschmidt she was going out. She hastily put out the light, and sat brooding in the dark until bedtime. The next morning the mail brought her a letter addressed in an unknown hand. She tore the envelope open and read: I cannot rest, I cannot sleep before I speak to you, before the prayer torn From out my breast in passionate outpour Swiftly on wind and wave to you is borne. I sit and dream by lighted lamp; still lies My work. With hours stolen I entwine A crown of flame that heavenly aspires In tongues of fire up round your head divine.