"Ed, I'm so frightened—"
I began to plan what I would do. Wait here until midnight, or one o'clock perhaps. Then drive up to Turber's and boldly ask for Alan. At worst, they would have caught him—arrested him as a marauder. I set my teeth. Why, before morning, if I couldn't locate Alan I'd have all the police of Staten Island up at Turber's looking for him!
"Don't be frightened, Nanette—he'll be back presently."
No one had passed along this road; we seemed wholly secluded. The sky remained overcast; there was not a star showing; off in the distance lightning had flared for a time and we heard the distant thunder, but the storm had now receded. There had been a cool wind, but it died. The night was black and dark. Breathless. And I think it was my apprehension, too, that made me breathless. I sat, with Nanette huddled against me; and stared, straining my eyes in the darkness for Alan's coming.
Midnight passed.
From the roof of the Turber Hospital the searchlight beam abruptly flashed into the sky! It hung motionless.
I told Nanette.
"What does it mean? What could—"
"I don't know."
We sat tense, every faculty alert. Nanette, with sharpened fancy and a hearing always keener than normal, cried out suddenly: