Slim turned her loose. Once he was well across the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, he lived up to all that the sporting pages had ever said in praise of his ability. The new car, clinging tight to the glass-smooth oiled macadam, flashed in a breath through villages—past dimly seen summer “cottages” of New York millionaires, grand ducal in their leisured magnificence—and on over the motor parkway through the humid, deserted night.
In the rear seat there was silence, except for the gale begotten by the machine’s great speed. Now and then, by the swift-passing lights of a village, Clifford saw the face of Mary Regan: it was pale and set, seemed without expression, and was fixed unchangingly ahead, not so much upon the brilliantly illumined road before them as upon the spaces of the night. He wondered what she was thinking of—she who had experienced so much these last few months, so many things that her calculations had not foreseen. But the swiftly gone glimpses of her white face gave him no clue....
And now and again Clifford saw the face of Mr. Morton beside her. Also the face of this masterful man of business, who ruled his thousands of men and dominated a score of companies, and yet had failed to direct his own son in the way he would have him go—also Mr. Morton’s face was drawn and pale, but it was fixed with straining impatience upon the roadway. Now and then Clifford saw him turn and gaze at Mary, whose forward-fixed look never shifted, and then turn back to the road, wetting his drawn, thinned lips....
All the while Clifford’s own mind was working. The professional part of Clifford felt the exultation of triumph already won—and the exultant excitement of the chase, which, if successful, would make triumph complete. He had already got Bradley; he felt certain that he soon was to get Loveman and the others. That much done, the dominating professional purpose would have been achieved. He would have won.... But there was the man element in Clifford, and it also was thinking as the car flew through the night. His success meant that Loveman, and Bradley, and Nina, and the others, who had subtly worked to undermine whatever of good there was in Jack, would be removed as factors in Jack’s life—and free of their influence and unopposedly under the influence of Mary, he and Mary might— Well, that was the way Life worked out. For long he had expected for himself nothing more....
On, on they sped, always silent, through the August night—the car relaxing its speed only when there were sharp curves, and then at once picking up its flashing pace. An hour slipped by—another hour. They were now come upon the upper of the two fingers into which the eastern third of Long Island separates—and the blackness of the night had changed into a thick, sluggish dawn, that murky dawn held back and muffled by the heavy fogs which lie upon the outer portions of the island on humid days of late summer and keep the horns and sirens of the shore at their discordant singing until noon.
Presently Clifford half rose in the machine and pointed forward. “There they are!” he exclaimed.
Before them in the murk was a swiftly moving something, now visible, now vanished in a thicker portion of the fog. The others saw, but said nothing.
Clifford leaned forward and spoke into Slim’s ear. “Just keep about this distance from them—they’ll have to stop in Greenport and we can get them before they can go aboard.”
Slim nodded. Keeping this quarter of a mile behind, they rushed on into the fog—flashed through Southold—over miles of marsh-bordered road—skirted for a space the single track of the Long Island Railway—skimmed more miles of marsh-bordered roadbed—swung about a curve—and then—
They clutched each other, their horrified eyes staring ahead. “My God!” gasped Clifford; and Mary gave a sharp cry—and a wrenching groan came from Mr. Morton. Instantly and instinctively Slim had shut off the gas and applied the brake—and slowly they rolled onward, staring wildly.