Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/283

Rh but with her fine, clear-cut features deadly pale, and with her gray eyes—straight and frank, like Sheppard's, but much deeper and softer—full of grief and terror, who stood first in the doorway.

"Leigh! So it was you keeping them out there! Leigh," her uncle's voice trembled as he spoke to the girl, "what are you doing here?"

"No; what are you doing, uncle?" the girl asked in clear, fearless tones. "Or rather, I mean, what have Mr. Chapin and this guide and this—this gentleman," she looked toward Trant and the gun Sheppard had handed him, "come here for this morning? And why have they brought Jim here—this way?" She moved aside a little, as though to let Trant see behind her the set and firm, but also very pale, features of young Tyler and the coarser face of the red-haired police officer. "I know," she continued, as her uncle still stood speechless, "that it must have something to do with my father; for Jim could not deny it. But what—what is it," she appealed again, with the terror gleaming in her eyes which told, even to Trant, that she must half suspect, "that brings you all here this way this morning, and Jim too?"

"Run over home again, my dear," the uncle stooped and kissed her clumsily. "Run back home now, for you can't come in."

"Yes; you'll go back home now, won't you, Leigh?" Tyler touched her hand.

"Perhaps you had better let Miss Sheppard in for a moment first, Mr. Tyler," Trant suggested. "For, in regard to what she seems to fear, I have only encouragement for her."