Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/131

 "Who?" he demanded loudly.

"Barney Loutrelle."

"Oh! Oh! He wasn't? Well, why wasn't he? What's happened to him? Is that what's stirred you up so? What's happened to him?"

"He'd been made away with!"

"Hey? Killed, you mean?"

"Yes; killed; killed."

"Hey? You saw him dead?"

"No; but—"

"But what?" he advanced upon her, leaning over her when she did not respond. "What did you see?"

And she knew that he needed answer to that; for, though he knew what had been done, he could not know—except from Kincheloe's own report—how well or how badly Kincheloe had done and what evidence of the deed Kincheloe might have left.

So she stepped away when her grandfather advanced and, defying him, she refused reply; and so, for a moment, she saw fear—fear such as that which she had surprised upon him in the night—alter his eyes; then his fear was gone as her refusal to answer him persisted and he became convinced that she had seen little, after all.

"Have you enough shame left to realize what you have just been saying to me?" he assailed her, raising his hand clenched but for his huge forefinger with which he threatened her. "Kincheloe has killed your fine friend of the train, Barney Loutrelle, you said. I had him do it! Eh? Eh? Say to me, do you mean that? Miss Platt's husband—and I—have 'made away with' Barney Loutrelle?"

"Grandfather!"

"Stop your grandfathering me! Answer plain