"And until then, Lola?" He looked at her with a growing passion, as he realized how completely she was putting herself into his power. "It may be a month or two. I'll hurry things all I can, but until then what are you going to do? Let's have this settled right now. I won't always be in as decent a mood as I seem to be in to-night. What are you going to do until then?" "I am going to stay with you, Dick." She looked at him, blushing slightly, but without a sign of nervousness. "No, please!" As he stepped toward her to take her in his arms. "I have thought it all out very carefully. If I come to you it must be on my own conditions." "It shall be, Lola; anything you want you shall have." "I want you to take me away, to-night, before any of them can find me. I don't want to come back to New York until after we are married. I will go with you anywhere you want to take me, but not alone. You must find some woman who will go with us." "Mrs. Harlan," he suggested promptly. "She's rather hard up just now, and she'd be glad of a little trip. She could get away to-morrow, I'm sure, if we made a point of it; not to-night; no woman on earth could do that." "Ask her, and if she will go, ask her if she would be willing to take me to her house to-night. John will come here, I am sure of that, but he would not dare to go there before morning, and if he comes then we can find a way to avoid him. You can take us there in a cab; then go to an hotel for the night." "Do you think I am afraid of John Dorris?" "I think you are very foolish if you are not," she answered. "John is a quiet man, but if he were to find us here in this room together, he would kill you!" Dick was no coward, but the bravest of men scarcely like to hear statements of this sort, and he remembered the look on John's face when he had passed him in the doorway, the day Lola had been brought home so seriously injured, killed, as they all supposed, by his carelessness. So he lost no time in calling Mrs. Harlan into the room, and telling her of their plans. She gladly agreed to go with them on a visit to the various summer resorts, and cheerfully offered to take care of Lola until they were ready to start. She said it was very sensible of them to avoid the chance of any unpleasantness, and that the sooner they got away from Dick's rooms the better. She reminded them that it would be a very easy matter for John, or Dr. Barnhelm, to get Dick's address from the telephone book, but she had no doubt of being able to keep Lola safely in her own apartment, until they were ready to leave the city. She returned to the other room for her wrap, and John went to telephone for his car and to give instructions to Brooks to pack up for a long journey. [Illustration: LOLA CONFESSES HER LOVE FOR DICK FENWAY.]