Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/245

 on the telephone instrument. For a second the flicker of a smile relieved the shadows. That was the link with Lola. But was there a link with Lola now?

Eleven pounds four shillings and threepence!

It meant that the end was very near, was here, in fact. The shock of the discovery had numbed him. What a fool he had been. It was strange, though, how fate seemed determined to eat into his rapidly vanishing resources. There had been the expense of staying at the Ritz-Carlton, whilst Lola was at the Belle Vue. Such rotten luck, then; but why trouble to build up the whole fabric of misfortune? From somewhere at the back of his mind he recalled a favourite phrase of the little cockney in his section, "Any'ow, that'll settle your little 'ash, ole son." That was exactly what was about to happen. His little hash was on the eve of being settled.

Slowly out of the chaos of his disordered thoughts was being constructed the Great Determination. It was as if an anæsthetic were being administered. That little tube of morphia tablets he had brought back from France seemed to be for ever dancing about in his thoughts. At first he had struggled against it; but gradually he had been overcome, until now he was almost reconciled to the inevitable. The will to live was dropping from him like a garment. Everybody had a right to decide for himself. Had not a coroner said as much publicly, and he was the