No! Storm shook himself angrily and plodded doggedly on. He would make no weak excuses to himself, pander to no womanish impulse to evade. This was a moral test and he would see it through!
It was just here that the automobile had appeared, roaring and careening down the road. What fools the authorities were to make such a point of its wild progress! Even old George, dense as he was, had seen the improbability of its connection with that night’s event.
There was the turn in the path just ahead, where the shadows lay thickest. Storm could feel the moisture gathering beneath the band of his hat, and it seemed to him that an ever-increasing weight was attached to his feet, dragging them back. The whisper in the trees had changed to a rising moan, and the swaying branches threw clutching shadows out across the path.
Here was the spot, at last! Here was where he had suggested that Horton look to see if the steamer were coming, where he himself had stepped back, rasping a dead match against his cigarette case that the other might hear and not wonder why his companion loitered; where he had gripped that heavy cane part way down its length, where he had raised it—— A-ah!
A sharp, hissing gasp escaped from Storm’s lips, to be caught up and carried away on a gust of wind, and he halted, staring at the figure which had seemed to rise from nowhere to confront him.
Then for a fleeting instant a rift in the cloud wrack sent a streak of pale moonlight shimmering down, and by its glow Storm saw the familiar blue uniform of a policeman.
“Good-evening, Officer.” Was that his own voice, that casually cordial drawl?
“’Evening, sir.” The other’s tone was civil enough, but was not his glance a trifle too keen, too questioning?
“Looks as though we were going to have a storm.”
“It does that, sir.”