Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/264

 Lola's bathroom? Suddenly he found his pulses beating wildly.

Lola! Was it With trembling fingers he took out his keys and fumbled to get the outer door open. Why was he so awkward, he who a moment ago had been calmness personified? Would the wretched key never find its way in and the door open? Ah! that was it. Closing the door quickly he took three steps, threw open the sitting-room door and there

It was Lola!

He stood staring at her, his jaw dropped, unconscious that his hat was still on his head.

She rose from the big chair in which she had been sitting. How pale and slight she looked. He noticed that in her right hand was a letter. Yes, she was wearing the same black frock she had worn at Folkestone and—yes, red roses, too. He noticed that her cloak was lined with some tint of amber, or was it orange? Then suddenly his faculties returned to him with a rush. With a swift movement he threw his hat, stick and gloves on to a chair. "Lola!" It was a sob rather than a greeting.

Suddenly there had come back to him with overwhelming force the realisation of what he had planned to do. He was like a man who has just realised that he has passed through some awful danger. It was the reaction. It was the great will to live, and going away would have been death. Where had he heard that before? Yes, he remembered, Tallis had prophesied it.