"But promise me now that Madame Raffoni shall lead me to you if you need me. You can trust her. I will come to her home. I cannot bear this agony, and I am watched, also!"
Even as he spoke, the heavens blackened and a stormy drift of rain swept athwart the sky. There was a muttering roll of thunder. The white-crested waves dashed menacingly upon the shore!
Irma Gluyas clung to her lover as the affrighted Madame Raffoni came rushing toward them for shelter in the storm. The red lightning flashed, and the fury of the storm was upon them. It was a wild tempest which raged around them. The women were helpless with fear.
In despair, Randall Clayton gazed at the distant hotels; there was shelter and safety. But now a new fear beset him. His well-known identity, Irma's marked beauty, the strange attendant duenna, there would be certain discovery and scandal. And he would be Ferris' easy victim if discovered.
Irma Gluyas shrieked as she clung to her lover and bade him save her as the wild lightning bolts rent the darkness. It was a horrid elemental tumult!
A few hundred yards away a heavy closed carriage was slowly creeping along the drive between the hotels. "Run for your life!" shouted Clayton to the eager Madame Raffoni. "Stop that carriage. Offer him anything, everything! I will carry her. I must save her."
Bending himself to the task, Clayton raised the fainting form of Irma Gluyas. Her long hair lowered, swept around her in the storm; her sculptured arms clung to him, and her warm heart thrilled him as he sped on through the driving torrent. He was possessed with Love's last delirium.
In the violence of the storm, Clayton could only motion "forward" as he closed the door of the carriage and the frightened horses set off at a mad gallop. The inmates of the carriage never saw the bridge as the vehicle swayed from side to side in the blue-flamed lightning flashes.
They were nearing Brooklyn when, in the still driving storm,
Clayton descended and procured some restoratives at a pharmacy.
He poured a draught of strong wine between the affrighted woman's pallid lips, and then whispered, "You must tell me where to take you. It is life or death now."