Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/59

 "Folkestone!" cried Beresford, "I'll be damned if I do. I'd sooner go to—to"

"Well, it'll probably be a choice between the two. I'd try Folkestone first, however, if I were you," he added drily. "It'll brace you up."

"But it's going back again" He paused and regarded the doctor comically. "You see," he continued, "I've cut adrift from all that sort of thing. I escaped from London, and now you want to send me to a seaside-town—abomination of abominations. I won't go. I'll see the whole idiotic Faculty damned first. I've been free, and I won't go back to the collar. I know you think I'm a fool," he concluded moodily.

"No, merely an idealist," said Tallis, puffing imperturbably at his pipe.

"Where's the difference?" growled Beresford, petulantly.

"There is none," was the quiet reply. "What'll happen when your money's exhausted?" was the next question. Beresford had already told Tallis of what had led up to his adventure. "I take it that your means, like other things, have their limitations. What'll you do when the money's gone?"

"Oh, anything, everything. If fate sends me pneumonia on the first day of my adventure, on the last she'll probably send me"

"A great desire for life," interrupted the doctor calmly.

Beresford sat up suddenly. "Good Lord!" he burst out. "How horrible! What a fiendish idea."