"Here, here, old fellow!" cried Simmy in alarm. "Don't go off your nut. You're talking like a crazy man,—and, hang it all, I don't like the look in your eye. Gosh, if it gives you the creeps—who don't have to be down there of nights,—what must it be for that shrinking, sensitive—Hey! Where are you going?"
"I'm going down there to see her. I'm going to tell her that I was a cur to write what I did to her the day I sailed. I—" He stopped short near the door, and faced his friend. His hands were clenched.
"I shall see her just this once,—never again if I can avoid it," he said. "Just to tell her that I don't want her to live in that house. She's got to get out. I'll not know a moment's peace until she is out of that house."
Simmy heard the door slam and a few minutes later the opening and closing of the elevator cage. He sat quite still, looking out over the trees. He was a rather pathetic figure.
"I wonder if I'd be so loyal to him if I had a chance myself," he mused. "Oh, Lordy, Lordy!" He closed his eyes as if in pain.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The storm burst in all its fury when Thorpe was half way down the Avenue in the taxi he had picked up at the Plaza. Pedestrians scurried in all directions, seeking shelter from the wind and rain; the blackness of night had fallen upon the city; the mighty roar of a thousand cannon came out of the clouds; terrifying flashes rent the skies. The man in the taxi neither saw nor heard the savage assault of the elements. He was accustomed to the roar of battle. He was used to thinking with something worse than thunder in his ears, and something worse than raindrops beating about him.
He knew that Anne was afraid of the thunder and the lightning. More than once she had huddled close to him and trembled in the haven of his arms, her fingers to her ears, while storms raged about them. He was thinking of her now, down there in that grim old house, trembling in some darkened place, her eyes wide with alarm, her heart beating wildly with terror,—ah, he remembered so well how wildly her heart could beat!