“That's enough,” he said tremulously, “as long as you—you think there is a chance even yet. And—and you do, don't you?”
“Yes,” said John Bruce, “I think there is more than a chance—if I can see her alone and make her listen to me. The car will be just the thing. But she would refuse to come out, if she knew I were in it. I depend on you for that. We'll drive down there, and you will have to make some excuse to get her to come with you. After that you can keep on driving us around the block until I either win or lose.”
Hawkins rose hurriedly to his feet.
“Let us go, John Bruce! For God's sake, let us go!” he cried eagerly. “I'll—I'll tell her Mrs. Hedges—that's my landlady—has got to see her at once. She'll come quick enough.”
John Bruce put on his hat and coat, and without a word led the way to the door—but at the door he paused for an instant. There was Larmon—and Crang was back. And then he shook his head in quick decision. There was time enough later. It would serve no purpose to tell Larmon now, other than the thankless one of giving Larmon a restless night.
John Bruce went on. He did not speak again until, outside the hotel, he stepped into the traveling pawnshop as Hawkins opened the car door for him.
“You will have to make sure that Crang has gone,” he said quietly. “Don't stop in front of the house, Hawkins.”
“I'll make sure,” whispered Hawkins, as he climbed to his seat. “Oh, my God, my little girl!”
The old car jolted forward. John Bruce's face was set again in hard, chiselled lines. He tried to think—but now his brain seemed curiously impotent, as though it groped through chaos and through turmoil only to stagger back bewildered, defeated, a wounded thing. And for a time it was like that, as he sat there swaying with the lurch of the speeding car, one thought impinging fast upon another only to be swallowed up so quickly in turn by still another that he could correlate-no one of them.
And then, after a little time again, out of this strange mental strife images began to take form, as sharply defined and distinct one from the other as before they had been mingled in hopeless confusion—and he cried out aloud in sudden agony of soul. It was to save his life that this had happened. He had wrung that knowledge from Crang. That was the lever he meant to use with Claire now, and it must succeed. He must make it succeed! It seemed to drive him mad now, that thought—that to-morrow morning she should die for him. Not physical death—worse than that! God! It was unthinkable, horrible, abominable. It seemed to flaunt and mock with ruthless, hell-born sacrilege what was holiest in his heart. It stirred him to a fury that brought him to his feet, his fists clenched. Claire in her purity—at the mercy of a degenerate beast!