"She came about a few minutes before nine, sir. She seemed very put out at not finding you."
"Had she been here before?"
"I think she was the lady come here one time with another lady, a dark lady, when you 'ad the suite upstairs, sir. I think she come in one evenin' when you read to them."
Ottalie had been there. It must have been Ottalie.
"I told her you was gone awy, sir. You 'adn't said where to."
He thanked Selina. He bit his lips lest he should ask whether the visitor had worn earrings. He went back into his room and sat down. He had not realised till then how much Ottalie meant to him. A voice rang in his brain that he had missed her, missed her by a few minutes, through his own impatience, through some chance, through some juggling against him of the powers outside life. All his misery seemed rolled into a leaden ball, which was smashing through his brain. The play was a little thing. The loss of John was a little thing. Templeton was farcical, the critics were little gnats, but to have missed Ottalie, to have lost Ottalie! He tasted a moment of despair.
Despair does not last long. It kills, or it goads to action. With Roger it lasted for a few seconds, and then changed to a passion to be on the way to her. But he would have to wait, he would have to wait. There were all those interminable hours to wait. All a whole night of purgatory. What could he do meanwhile? How could he pass that night? What could he do? Work was impossible. Talk was impossible. He remembered then, another thing.
He opened his Bradshaw feverishly. Yes. There was another boat-train to Holyhead. He could be in Dublin a little after dawn the next day; "8.45 from Euston." He could just do it. He would catch that second boat-train. It was a bare chance; but it could be done. He could be with Ottalie by the afternoon of the next day. But money; he had not enough money. Five minutes to pack. He could spare that; but how about money? To whom could he go for money? Who would have money to lend upon the instant? It would have to be some one near at hand. Every second made his task harder. Where would there be a cab? Which of his friends lived on the way to Euston? Who lives between Westminster and Euston? It is all park, and slum, and boarding-house. Big Ben, lifting his voice, intoned the quarter.
He caught a cab outside Dean's Yard. He drove to a friend in Thames Chambers. The friend lent him a sovereign and some loose silver. He had enough now to take him to Ireland. He bade the cabman to hurry. The newsboys were busy in the Strand. They were calling out something about winner, and disaster. He saw one newsbill flutter out from a man's hand. "British Liner Lost," ran the heading. He felt relieved that the monkey-mind had now something new to occupy it. The changing of the newsbill heading made him feel cleaner.
Up to the crossing of Holborn, he felt that he would catch the train. At Holborn the way was barred by traffic. The Euston Road was also barred to him. He missed the train by rather more than a minute. He was too tired to feel more disappointment. The best thing for him to do, he thought, would be to sleep at home, catch the boat-train in the morning and travel all day. That plan would land him in Ireland within twenty-four hours. He could then either stay a night in port, or post the forty miles to his cottage. In any case he would be with Ottalie, actually in her very presence, within forty hours. By posting the forty miles he might watch the next night outside her window, in the deep peace of the Irish country, almost within sound of the sea. The thought of the great stars sweeping over Ottalie's home, and of the moon coming up, filling the valley, and of the little wind which trembled the leaves, giving, as it were, speech to the beauty of the night, moved him intensely. In his overwrought mood, these things were the only real things. The rest was all nightmare.