"Where?" he hoarsely cried. The woman's jargon made plain that the beautiful singer still lay in the darkened rooms whither his loving arms had borne her.
"The carriage, yes; my God, we must hurry!" was Clayton's first returning thought; and then, motioning to the woman to follow, the cashier darted along Fourteenth Street.
He was already within the vehicle when Leah Einstein timidly entered.
"To the Fulton Ferry. Hurry!" called out the excited Clayton, as the burly policeman drove away a knot of "extra"-peddling urchins.
"I can easily reach the bank by two o'clock; they never shut the side
doors till three," murmured Clayton, as his eyes rested upon the
Russia-leather portmanteau. He instinctively gripped his revolver.
It was all right.
And then, with a sinking heart, he essayed to gain some connected story of the Magyar songbird's grave peril.
But, the woman sobbing there was all too overcome for a connected story.
There was only death in the air—there was the open grave yawning
for the woman he loved, and the brightness had gone out of Randall
Clayton's life forever when, with white lips, he asked himself,
"Will we be in time? Irma! My God! Irma, my own darling!"
He had only time to dismiss the carriage and drag Madame Raffoni on the ferry-boat when the chains barred out a score of the rushing crowd.
Twenty minutes later, his heart beating a funeral knell, Randall Clayton, portmanteau in hand, passed within the portals of the old brownstone mansion. As the woman softly closed the door, which she had opened with a pass-key, she laid her finger on her lip.