Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/76

 the house; but she could discern nothing but the bulk of the Rock with the snow-covered house merged into it. She glanced at her grandfather's window to find his hand still holding the telescope pointed; through it, he was seeing—what? And why should he care so much? What influence supplied steadiness to his hand to hold the glass motionless so long?

He suddenly became conscious that she observed him; or perhaps he had seen all he wished; for his hand drew back, and the glass was gone.

Ethel shivered and retreated from her window to the stove where she finished her cocoa which had become cold. It was remarkable that whereas early in the morning her business affairs had so absorbed her that she could not sleep, now the concerns of a stranger had made her forgetful of her own. She partly undressed and bathed her face and arms; after again dressing, she took from her overcoat pocket a large envelope filled with the business papers over which she had been puzzling on the train. Separating a few sheets of summaries, she folded them in her hand and went downstairs to the big, cluttered room at the southwest corner of the house which her grandfather called his office. The door was open, and a fire was glowing, half burnt out, upon the wide hearth within; but no one was there when Ethel entered. She always had liked this big room which really was less an office than a museum of trophies from her grandfather's long life; but now she was conscious of something more than her old curiosity as she moved about before the articles on display,—a framed woodcut of Lincoln printed in 1860 by the little Ohio newspaper for which Lucas Cullen had worked when a boy; souvenirs which he had picked up in Virginia—he had