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." And then Irma Gluyas, her head resting on Madame Raffoni's bosom, feebly whispered, "To my home, 192 Layte Street." There was not a word spoken as, in the midnight darkness of the storm, the horses struggled along until, under the shelter of the high houses, the carriage stopped before the desolate-looking old mansion. There was a look of terror on Madame Raffoni's face which was not lost upon Clayton. "Get the door open," he hoarsely cried. "I will carry her in. Then, I swear to you, I will leave her at once." The strong man sprang from his place, and in a few moments he stood within the veiled splendors of the old drawing-room. Kneeling by the bed, wherein he had deposited the senseless woman, Clayton chafed her marble hands in an agony of despair. But, even in his lover's exaltation, he listened to Madame Raffoni, who knelt before him in passionate adjuration. "Go, go!" she cried in broken pathos. "I will come to you to-morrow." And she dragged him to the door. "I will all do; everything! I swear! Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!" With one last despairing look, raining passionate kisses upon the marble lips of the woman he loved, Randall Clayton left the dusky magnificence of the superb apartment, and only halted at the door long enough to whisper to the Raffoni, "Bring me to her to-morrow, and I will make you rich!" And the poor woman dumbly covered his hands with obedient kisses. "Go, go!" she cried. "I will come!" And, touched with the woman's frantic fears, Randall Clayton sprang into the carriage. Through the blinding storm he had reached the New York side before he thought of his own movements, of the morrow, of his coming friend, and of his wary enemies. Then he resolutely made up his mind to fight the warring Fates to a finish. He drove to the Astor House, dismissed his driver with a ransom fee, and there hid himself in an upper room. When he presented himself at the half-deserted office of the Western Trading Company, upon the next morning, he was clad in unfamiliar garb.