desperation I went to see the men at the office. No, they had not seen
him. Was there anything that they could do? they asked. I smiled, and
thanked them, and said, oh, Peter was so absent-minded! No doubt he had
misdirected his letters, or something of the sort. And then I went back
to the flat to resume the horrible waiting.

One week later he turned up at the old office which had cast him off. He
sat down at his former desk and began to write, breathlessly, as he
used to in the days when all the big stories fell to him. One of the
men reporters strolled up to him and touched him on the shoulder,
man-fashion. Peter Orme raised his head and stared at him, and the man
sprang back in terror. The smoldering eyes had burned down to an ash.
Peter Orme was quite bereft of all reason. They took him away that
night, and I kept telling myself that it wasn't true; that it was all
a nasty dream, and I would wake up pretty soon, and laugh about it, and
tell it at the breakfast table.

Well, one does not seek a divorce from a husband who is insane. The busy
men on the great paper were very kind. They would take me back on the
staff. Did I think that I still could write those amusing little human
interest stories? Funny ones, you know, with a punch in 'em.

Oh, plenty of good stories left in me yet, I assured them. They must
remember that I was only twenty-one, after all, and at twenty-one one
does not lose the sense of humor.

And so I went back to my old desk, and wrote bright, chatty letters home
to Norah, and ground out very funny stories with a punch in 'em, that
the husband in the insane asylum might be kept in comforts. With both
hands I hung on like grim death to that saving sense of humor, resolved
to make something of that miserable mess which was my life--to make
something of it yet. And now--

At this point in my musings there was an end of the low-voiced
conversation in the hall. Sis tiptoed in and looked her disapproval at
finding me sleepless.

"Dawn, old girlie, this will never do. Shut your eyes now, like a good
child, and go to sleep. Guess what that great brute of a doctor said!
I may take you home with me next week! Dawn dear, you will come, won't
you? You must! This is killing you. Don't make me go away leaving you
here. I couldn't stand it."

She leaned over my pillow and closed my eyelids gently with her sweet,
cool fingers. "You are coming home with me, and you shall sleep and eat,
and sleep and eat,