He gripped it suddenly close. "That's the sort of hell these fiendish tempers of yours might end in," he said. "You've got to save yourself, my son. I can't save you."
Robin clung to him tensely, desperately. "You don't—want me to go,
Dicky?" he whispered.
"Good God!" Richard said. "I'd rather see you dead!"
In the silence that followed, Robin turned with a curious groping movement, took the hand that pressed his shoulder, and pulled it over his eyes.
CHAPTER II
MIDSUMMER MADNESS
An ominous darkness brooded over all things as Green walked up the long avenue of Shale Court half-an-hour later. The storm had been long in, gathering, and he judged that he would yet have time to reach his destination before it broke. But it was nearer than he thought, and the first dull roar of its coming reached him soon after he had passed the gates. He shrugged his shoulders at the sound and hurried on, for he was in no mood to turn back. The business before him was one that could not be shirked, and the lines on his dark face showed unyielding determination as he went.
He was half-way up the drive when the first flash of lightning glimmered eerily across the heavy gloom. It was followed so swiftly by a burst of thunder that he realized that he had no time to spare if he hoped to escape the threatening deluge. He broke into a run, covering the ground with the ease of the practised athlete, elbows at sides and head up, going at an even pace which he knew he could maintain to the finish without distress.
But he was not destined to run to a finish. As he rounded a bend that gave him a view of the house in the distance, he suddenly heard a voice call to him from the deep shadow of the trees, and checking sharply he discerned a dim figure coming towards him across the grassy ride that bordered the road.
He diverted his course without a moment's thought, and went to meet it.