“Most of her funds are banked in her name, anyway.  But for fear she will not want to use that money I am going to send a check to you each month for her which you are to use as you see fit, with or without her knowledge.  I am enclosing the key of the studio.  The rent is paid a long ways ahead, and I will send you the money for future payments and its care.  Please have it kept ready for me to walk in at any time.  Mother always goes to Elizabeth’s for the holidays, anyway.  Keep her from guessing as long as you can.  I’ll write to her after she gets to Elizabeth’s.

“I guess that’s all.  If Madge doesn’t understand why I am doing this I can’t help it.  But it’s the only thing to do.  Yours always.  Dicky.”

The room seemed to whirl around me as I read.  Dicky gone forever, arranging for me to get a divorce!  I clung blindly to Lillian as I moaned:  “Oh, what does it mean?”

“Think, Madge, Madge, have you and Dicky had any quarrel lately?”

“Nothing that could be called a quarrel, no,” I returned, “and, not even the shadow of a disagreement since my accident.”

“Then,” Lillian said musingly, “either Dicky has gone suddenly mad—­”

She stopped and looked at me searchingly.  “Or what, Lillian,” I pleaded.  “Tell me.  I am strong enough to stand the truth, but not suspense.”

“I believe you are,” she said, “and you will have to help me find out the truth.  Now remember this may have no bearing on the thing at all, but Harry saw Grace Draper talking to Dicky the other day.  He said Dicky didn’t act particularly well pleased at the meeting, but that the girl was, as Harry put it, ‘fit to put your eyes out,’ she looked so stunning.  But it doesn’t seem possible that if Dicky had gone away with her he would write that sort of a note to me and leave no word for you.”

“Fit to put your eyes out!” The phrase stung me.  With a quick movement, I grasped the hand mirror that lay on the stand by my bed, and looked critically at the image reflected there.  Wan, hollow-eyed, with one side of my face and neck still flaming from my burns, I had a quick perception of the way in which my husband, beauty-lover that he is, must have contrasted my appearance with that of Grace Draper.

Lillian took the mirror forcibly from me, and laid it out of my reach.

“This sort of thing won’t do,” she said firmly.  “It only makes matters worse.  Now just be as brave as you possibly can.  Remember, I am right here every minute.”

I could only cling to her.  There seemed in all the world no refuge for me but Lillian’s arms.

The weeks immediately following Dicky’s departure are almost a blank memory to me.  I seemed stunned, incapable of action, even of thinking clearly.

If it had not been for Lillian, I do not know what I should have done.  She cared for me with infinite tenderness and understanding, she stood between me and the imperative curiosity and bewilderment of my mother-in-law, and she made all the arrangements necessary for my taking up my life as a thing apart from my husband.