He stepped back, dropping her hand, and for the first time since she had known him a look of real sadness came into his face. "I--I guess there's nothing for me to do but go. I have usually had most everything I wanted in this world, but now if I'm going to lose you I'm getting the worst of things, after all." "I am sorry," began Lola, but he shook his head impatiently and crossed to the door. "I haven't any use for your sympathy. You say you are going to marry John Dorris, but you haven't done it yet. You say that you are not going to see me again. I don't believe that, Lola. You don't love me. I know, but you don't love him either. You don't know what love is, and when you learn it won't be from John Dorris." He closed the door behind him, and she heard him running down the stairs as she stood there with a strange dread in her heart. CHAPTER III DR. PAUL CROSSETT From her window, a few hours later, Lola could see her father as he turned in from Eighth Avenue and walked briskly toward the house. With him was a rather short, extremely animated, and perfectly groomed gentleman, whom she at once knew to be Doctor Paul Crossett. Even from that distance she could plainly see that, although she knew him to be a man of her father's age, he had the look of one much younger. It would be a bold man who would dare to state that married life and the atmosphere of a home do more to bring about grey hairs and wrinkles than the emptiness of a bachelor's existence, but in this case, at least, the contrast was startling. Paul Crossett, quite fifty, had, and looked to have, all the enthusiasms of youth. He was a Frenchman, and to a close observer he was perhaps rather freer in gesticulations than our somewhat stiff New Yorkers, but he was far from being the Frenchman of the comic supplement. Indeed, Paul Crossett was a real citizen of the world, quite as much at home in New York, London or Berlin as he was in Paris. He was one of the best known authorities on nervous disorders in the medical world, besides being a surgeon of international reputation. As he entered the room with her father a moment later, Lola advanced to meet him with a smile, but, to her surprise, at the sight of her he stopped, and a look of deep sorrow, almost of fear, came into his face. "This is Lola, Paul," said the Doctor proudly. In a moment the look on Dr. Crossett's face changed to one of eager welcome, and he stepped forward and took both of her extended hands in his. "You are as your mother was," he said gently, then as he stooped to kiss her saying softly, "My age permits," she saw a tear on his smooth, almost boyish cheek, and with a woman's quick intuition she understood and loved him for the love he had had for her mother, whom he had not seen since his early manhood, but whom he had never forgotten, and never could forget. [Illustration: E. M. KIMBALL AS DOCTOR CROSSET.]