Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/198

 "And I'm writing him!" she confessed proudly. "We're doing this together; he's staying there to find out who was killed at the Rock and why; and I came down here for the same reason."

Bennet sat back, dazed. "You met him, you said, that morning on the train. You picked him up in the station at Escanaba; and you've—" Bennet was unable to proceed.

Ethel, too, was silent. She had not intended to divulge the plan upon which Barney and she had agreed; she had not intended to betray, as she had, her own feeling for Barney. Indeed, she had not been aware herself just what her feeling had become.

"He's not like your friends," she suddenly defended Barney belligerently. "He's not like—any one else in the world."

Bennet was able only to look his disgust; then he asked, "Since you're working this so much together, I suppose he wouldn't go to the local police—the sheriff, up there, isn't it—without letting you know."

"No; I don't think he would."

"Then maybe there's time to control him."

"Control him how?"

"Shut him up, of course."

"Ben, if it's all my foolishness, what are you afraid of?"

"Afraid?" Bennet repeated. "Me? I'm afraid of nothing but the rotten low slander you'd like to lay on grandfather; you and your pick-up friend. I'd think you could see. Grandfather'll punish him and you, too, if you try it; but do you think you're doing any good to the family? Oh, you make tired. Now how can I get at this Loutrelle friend of yours?"