t home, but to be ready to accompany them
to a nearby resort for a "shore dinner," as they were coming out on
the 5 o'clock train. No wonder that at 10:30 Lillian and I were both
anxious and irritated.

Dicky's behavior toward me, since death so nearly gripped me,
certainly had given me no reason to doubt that his infatuation
for Grace Draper was at an end. But no one except myself knew how
apparently strong her hold had been on Dicky through the weeks of the
late summer, nor how ruthless her own mad passion for him was. Had she
reconsidered her bargain? Was she making one last attempt to regain
her hold upon Dicky?

The telephone suddenly rang out its insistent summons. I ran to it,
but Lillian brushed past me and took the receiver from my trembling
hand.

I sank down on the stairs and clutched the stair rail tightly with
both hands to keep from falling.

"Yes, yes, this is Lil, Harry. What's the matter?

"Seriously?

"Where are you?

"Yes, we were coming, anyway. Yes, we'll bring Miss Draper's sister.
Don't bother to meet us. We'll take a taxi straight from the station."

Staggering with terror, I caught her hand, and prevented her putting
the receiver back on its hook.

"Is Dicky dead?" I demanded.

"No, no, child," she said soothingly.

"I don't believe it," I cried, maddened at my own fear. "Call him to
the 'phone. Let me hear his voice myself, then I'll believe you."

She took the receiver out of my grip, put it back upon the hook,
and grasped my hands firmly, holding them as she would those of a
hysterical child.

"See here, Madge," she said sternly, "Dicky is very much alive, but he
is hurt slightly and needs you. We have barely time to get Mrs. Gorman
and that train. Hurry and get ready."

* * * * *

Dicky's eager eyes looked up from his white face into mine. His voice,
weak, but thrilling with the old love note, repeated my name over and
over, as if he could not say it enough.

I sank on my knees beside the bed in which Dicky lay. I realized in a
hazy sort of fashion that the room must be Harry Underwood's own bed
chamber, but I spent no time in conjecture. All my being was fused in
the one joyous certainty that Dicky was alive and in my arms, and
that I had been assured he would get well. I laid my face against
his cheek, shifted my arms so that no weight should rest against his
bandaged left shoulder, which, at my first glimpse of it, had caused
me to shu