Now and then he looked back fearfully; at every crossroad his eyes darted keenly to right and left, as he let out the car to the very highest speed he dared, hoping and praying that he might reach his goal without encountering any one.
All the time fear—deadly, unreasoning, ignoble fear—was tugging at his heart-strings.
He had gone through just such an experience as this little more than a year ago in Kansas City. How vividly it all came back to him! The unexpected meeting with two old school chums whom he had not seen in months; their hilarious progress of celebration from one café to another, which ended, long past midnight, in that wild joy ride through the silent, deserted streets.
He shuddered. He thought he had succeeded in thrusting from his mind the details of it all: The sudden skidding around a corner on two wheels; the man’s face that flashed before them in the electric light, dazed—white—terrified. The thud—the fall—the sickening jolt, as the wheels went over him. Then that wild, unreasoning, terror-stricken impulse to fly, to escape the consequences at any cost, which possessed him. He gave no thought to his unconscious victim. He only wanted to get away before any one came, and somehow he had done so.
A few days later, in the safe seclusion of his home near Wilton, when he read that the fellow had succumbed to his injuries in the Kansas City hospital, his first thought was one of self-congratulation at his own cleverness in eluding pursuit.
His two chums he had never seen since that morning. Only a few weeks ago one of them had declined an invitation to visit him. He wondered why.
Once in his prep school days, when the dormitory caught fire, he had stumbled blindly down the fire escape and left his roommate sleeping heavily. Luckily the boy was roused in time; but it was no thanks to Brose that he escaped with his life.
For Stovebridge was a coward. In spite of his handsome face and dashing manner; in spite of his popularity, his athletic prowess, his many friends—in spite of all, he was a moral coward.
Few suspected it and still fewer knew, for the fellow was constantly on his guard and clever at hiding this unpleasant trait. But it was there just the same, ready to leap forth in a twinkling, as it had done this morning, and stamp his face with the brand of fear.
As the great, granite gateposts of the club appeared in sight, Stovebridge breathed a sigh of relief. By some extraordinary luck he had encountered no one on his wild ride thither. He had passed several crossroads, any one of which he was prepared to swear he had come by, and for the present he was safe.