“Duke—are you going to murder him?”
“I’m going to find her. Let that do for the present—and you’ve got to help me.”
“Where are we to look? Did the letter give an address?”
“No. She kept her secret to the last. It was a noble one, I swear. There’s a postmark, though, and that’s my clew. Hurry, will you?”
I seized my hat and stick.
“Duke—for the love of heaven, why must it be too late even now?”
“Because I know it is. Doesn’t that satisfy you? I loved her—do you understand it now for the first time? The fiend tread on your heels. Aren’t you ever coming?”
I hurried after him into the street. A clap of wind struck and staggered us as if it had been water. Beating through the night, its icy fury clutched at us, stinging and buffeting our faces, until it seemed as though we were fighting through an endless thicket of brambles. Struggling and panting onward—silent with the silence of the lost—we made our way by slow degrees to the low ground about Chelsea, and presently came out into a freer air and the black vision of the river sliding before us from night into night.
“Duke,” I whispered, awfully—“is this what you fear?”
“Follow!” he cried. “I fear nothing! It’s past that!”