Piers held it, and looked into her face
as once before.
"Olga----"
The girl uttered a cry of distress, drew her hand away, and
exclaimed in a half-hysterical voice:
"No! What right have you?"
"Every right! Do you know what your mother said to me--her last
words to me----?"
"You mustn't tell me!" Her tones were softer. "Not to-day. If we
meet again----"
"Of course we shall meet again!"
"I don't know. Yes, yes; we shall. But you must go now; it is time I
went home."
He touched her hand again, and left the room without looking back.
Before the door had closed behind him, Olga ran forward with a
stifled cry. The door was shut. She stood before it with tears in
her eyes, her fingers clenched together on her breast, and sobbed
miserably.
For nearly half an hour she sat by the fire, head on hands, deeply
brooding. In the house there was not a sound. All at once it seemed
to her that a voice called, uttering her name; she started, her
blood chilled with fear. The voice was her mother's; she seemed
still to hear it, so plainly had it been audible, coming from she
knew not where.
She ran to her hat and jacket, which lay in a corner of the room,
put them on with feverish haste, and fled out into the street.
CHAPTER XXIX
"I will be frank with you, Piers," said Daniel Otway, as he sat by
the fireside in his shabby lodgings, his feet on the fender, a
cigarette between his fingers.
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