Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/330

312 Henry's words to her in the north, after Alan had seen her there, iterated themselves to her: "I told that fellow Conrad not to keep stirring up these matters about Ben Corvet. . . . Conrad doesn't know what he'll turn up; I don't know either. But it's not going to be anything pleasant. . . ." Only a few minutes ago she had still thought of these words as spoken only for Alan's sake and for Uncle Benny's; now she could not think of them so. This fear of news from the north could not be for their sake; it was for Henry's own. Had all the warnings been for Henry's sake too?

Horror and amazement flowed in upon her with her realization of this in the man she had promised to marry; and he seemed now to appreciate the effect he was producing upon her. He tried obviously to pull himself together; he could not do that fully; yet he managed a manner assertive of his right over her.

"Connie," he cried to her, "Connie!"

She drew back from him as he approached her; she was not yet consciously denying his right. What was controlling him, what might underlie his hope that they were dead, she could not guess; she could not think or reason about that now; what she felt was only overwhelming desire to be away from him where she could think connectedly. For an instant she stared at him, all her body tense; then, as she turned and went out, he followed her, again calling her name. But, seeing the seamen in the larger office, he stopped, and she understood he was not willing to urge himself upon her in their presence.

She crossed the office swiftly; in the corridor she stopped to compose herself before she met her mother.