Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/76

 was not sorry, although it was undignified to have to confess himself beaten. Still London was calling as she had never called to him before, not even in those nightmare-days in flooded trenches during 1914. After all perhaps it would be wiser to take train and run no risks. Tallis had been very definite about the unwisdom of over-exertion.

The sight of an approaching cart decided him. As it drew almost level Beresford hailed the driver, a little, weather-beaten old man with ragged whiskers and kindly blue eyes, asking if he would give him a lift.

The man pulled up and invited him to jump in, explaining that he was bound for Leatherhead.

As he climbed into the cart, Beresford was conscious that it meant surrender; but he was quite content.

Thus it happened that at half-past three on the afternoon of the day he had set out from "The Two Dragons," Beresford found himself at Waterloo Station, with no luggage other than his rucksack and a walking-stick, wondering where he should spend the night. He had taken the precaution of booking a room at the Ritz-Carlton; but he was not due there until the following Monday. In any case he could not very well turn up without luggage and in his present kit.

Having sent a telegram to Tallis telling him of the accuracy of his lugubrious prophesies, Beresford hailed a taxi and drove to the Dickens Hotel in Bloomsbury, where he was successful in obtaining a