For a time Laurie did not answer. Then she felt rather than saw his face turn toward her in the darkness.
"Doris."
"Yes."
"Will you do something for me?"
"Yes, Laurie, anything."
"Then don't speak till we reach New York. When we get to your studio I'll tell you everything. Will you do that?"
"But—Laurie—"
"Will—you—do—it?" The voice was not Laurie's. It was the harsh, grating voice of a man distraught.
"Yes, of course."
Silence settled upon them like a substance, a silence broken only by the roar of the storm and the crashing of wind-swept branches of the trees that lined the road. The car's powerful search-lights threw up in ghostly shapes the covered stumps and hedges they passed and the masses of snow that beat against them. Subconsciously the girl knew that this boy beside her, driving with the recklessness of a lost soul, was merely guessing at a road no one could have seen, but in that half-hour she had no thought for the hazards of the journey. Her panic had grown till it filled her soul.