Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/263

Rh The hand, which had been at her breast, rose slowly and beckoned.

"You want me?" he called.

She tried to speak but could not, so merely nodded and beckoned again.

He spoke to the men with him and as the raft gained way planted his pike on bottom and vaulted across the strip of water.

She had stopped, the wind whipping her skirt about her legs, making her body appear to sway like an unstable stalk.

"Helen, what is it?" for he saw her blanched face and parted lips.

"Come," she said, hoarsely, and turned while he was yet yards away and started back towards the house.

"Tell me," he demanded, taking her arm as he came up with her.

She drew her elbow away from his grasp and looked at him as one who, even in half consciousness, shrinks from the undesirable.

"Helen?—"

They were at the steps. Goddard, glowering at Taylor, held back the screen and John followed the girl into the room. There they stood, Helen backing against the mantel beneath the bowl of roses and her father's photograph. Taylor looked from her to Goddard and caught the vengeful light in the man's gray eyes.

"What's the trouble," he asked, evenly, some deep-set impulse rising to steel him for a crisis.

Goddard spoke.

"There's been a good deal goin' on lately to cause suspicion. Some of us have had our eyes and ears open."