Suddenly the only thing which seemed to matter in all the world was that she must be gone before Leonard Dowson returned. If once he came back and heard her decision, there would be scenes, reproaches, persuasions, a hundred emotions let loose; and Toni was guiltily conscious, through all her new-born resolution, that she was treating this man who loved her unfairly. He had been gone five minutes--he might return at any second. Tip-toeing across to the window, Toni parted the red curtains and lifted a lath of the old-fashioned Venetian blind to peer through into the fog. She could not see much. Outside the hotel she could just distinguish the blurred shape of the car, the lamps flaring yellowly in the mist; but the shops and houses opposite were blotted out by the curtain of fog; and she knew she risked running into the man from whom she longed, desperately, to escape. Where she would go did not matter now. Plans must be made afterwards--now she had but one desire, to flee into the fog and be lost to sight. She was actually moving towards the door when a thought struck her. Tearing a bit of paper from the fly-leaf of a book on the table, she took from the deep pocket of her coat a little pencil, and scribbled a message--as short, almost, as that which had announced to Leonard her previous decision. "I can't go on with you. I am going. TONI." She had no time for more. Every second was precious; and even now she doubted whether she were in time to make her escape. She opened the door and listened. Nothing was heard but the mutter of voices in the bar downstairs; and there was no one in sight. A moment she stood, her heart in her throat, driven nearly distracted between impatience and terror. Then she turned back into the room, snatched up her gloves and purse from the table and ran down the broad stairs and across the square hall with frenzied haste. A sound of footsteps in a passage close at hand made her start nervously. Without delaying a second she opened the great door, letting in a rush of cold, raw air, and, not venturing to look round, lest even now she should be intercepted in her flight, she slipped through the aperture and fled into the night. CHAPTER XXVI At nine o'clock that same evening Jim Herrick, alone in his shabby yet delightful little sitting-room, was roused from his contemplation of an etching he had picked up in town that day by a deep-throated bark from Olga. She had been lying in the hall; and doubtless her sharp ears had heard some approaching footstep which to his duller human hearing was inaudible. Eva was upstairs, trying on some finery she had purchased in London; and after waiting a moment Herrick went into the hall to investigate. Someone was knocking now on the door, thereby rousing Olga's wrath; and Herrick held her firmly by the collar as he went to answer the summons.