Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/157

 cursed himself for being such a fool as to faint. He had never fainted before. It was all her fault.

This girl seemed fated to upset everything he planned. What right had she to come into his life at so psychological a moment as the first day of his freedom? He had given months to the thought of cutting himself adrift from old ties and restraints. Then in a flash she had destroyed everything—she and the weather. The open road and the wayside hedge no longer beckoned to him. The thought of hour after idle hour spent lying on his back listening to the lark had now passed like an opium vision. The smell of the earth, the heat of the sun and the lazily drifting clouds, all seemed to belong to something beyond him, something far away. He was—yes, he must be light-headed.

It was nearly five o'clock when eventually he fell asleep and dreamed that he had just arrived at Folkestone and discovered Lord Drewitt and the Rain-Girl paddling.

The next morning Beresford was awakened by a feeling that some one was looking at him. He opened his eyes to find the chambermaid gazing sympathetically down upon him.

"Are you feeling better, sir?" she enquired solicitously as he opened his eyes.

"Yes, thank you," he replied, then memory