“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 shudder involuntarily.

“If you only knew how awful I felt about this,” Dicky murmured, contritely, and, as I raised my eyes to look at him, his own contracted as with pain.

“It’s a fine mess I’ve brought you into by my carelessness this summer, but I swear I didn’t dream—­”

I laid my hand on his lips.

“Don’t, sweetheart,” I pleaded.  “It is enough for me to know that you are safe in my arms.  Nothing else in the world matters.  Just rest and get well for me.”

He kissed the hand against his lips, then reached up the unbandaged arm, and with gentle fingers pulled mine away.

“But there is one thing I must talk about,” he said solemnly, “something you must do for me, Madge, for I cannot get up from here to see to it.  It’s a hard thing to ask you to do, but you are so brave and true, I know you will understand.  Tell me, is that poor girl going to die?”

“I—­I don’t know, Dicky,” I faltered, salving my conscience with the thought that he must not be excited with the knowledge of Grace Draper’s true condition.

“Poor girl,” he sighed.  “I never dreamed she looked at things in the light she did, but I feel guilty anyhow, responsible.  She must have the best of care, Madge, best physicians, best nurses, everything.  I must meet all expenses, even to the ones which will be necessary if she should die.”