"Yes," she answered; "and oh, Mr. Tremain, come with me; oh do, please do."
He hesitated for a moment; then giving the address, stepped in and seated himself beside her.
Neither Philip nor Miss Darling ever forgot that long night drive, or the moving panorama made up of lights and shops and people, that seemed for ever passing and repassing before them. It was as if they stood still, while all this restless pageant went by them in brilliant sequence.
As they turned into Broadway, and drove somewhat slowly up that narrow thoroughfare, they met the stream of pleasure-seekers at its height; the theatres were just over, and a crowd of brightly-dressed, gay-voiced people were passing from the entrances into the streets. Now and then a light laugh, or some careless jest, would reach the silent occupants of the carriage, and wound them; as a blow wounds falling upon a hurt still fresh and bleeding.
"Oh," cried Dick at one such moment, "how cruel the world is, how unfeeling! Ah, Mr. Tremain, how can any one laugh and jest when she lies in that awful place,—while Patricia is in prison?"
But Philip said nothing; the anguish of his own heart was too absorbing to leave room for superfluous words of comfort. For no anguish is so great and so overwhelming, as the knowledge of one's powerlessness to help when one's best beloved is in dire need of aid.
Fifth Avenue was reached at last, heralded a long way off by the huge electric transparency, which flaunts its advertisement high above the heads of the pedestrians, and causes the very stars of heaven to pale before its garish light.
Turning down a side street, well up among the "thirties," and then into Madison Avenue, the coachman drew up before a large brown stone house, across whose many-windowed front not a light was to be seen, save the faint gas-jet of the ornamental brass sconce in the vestibule.
Miss Darling sprang out unassisted, and running quickly up the steps, pulled out a latch-key and swung open the door as Philip came up behind her.
"You will find Esther in her morning-room," she said briefly, and leaving him to find his own way, turned towards the stairs. Philip watched her as she mounted them wearily, step by step. There was dejection and despondency in her movements, and in the tired droop of the young shoulders beneath the long dark cloak.