Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/311

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THE STEADFAST HEART

Nobody must know—such a thing—about Judge Crane.”

Before Gene could reply Angus was out of the room and hurrying up the street. Crane had preceded him by a quarter of an hour; had entered his own automobile and had driven rapidly out of town toward the west…. Craig Browning’s car was standing before his office and Angus commandeered it—he had often driven Henry G. Woodhouse on errands about the countryside—and set out in pursuit.

Craig Browning had a nice taste in cars of high power and great speed. Never had this car been driven so rapidly as Angus Burke drove it to-day, for he drove as a man can drive only when he has utterly forgotten himself and the fragility of his neck; when the objective to be gained erases from his mind all self-consciousness…. The westward road stretched, with sundry turnings, some twenty-five miles to Deal; Angus told himself he must overtake Judge Crane before that twenty-five miles was traversed; must overtake and compel him to return to Rainbow….

In his hurried thoughts he blamed himself; where he had sought to aid, to save if possible, he had precipitated the catastrophe. He had thrown Crane into sudden panic, so that the man, incapable of reasoning, had seen no course

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