Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/106

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RESURRECTION ROCK

of her, but he was exhibiting an uneasiness which restored to Ethel her fears of the night. Miss Platt's husband seemed to be losing determination; he no longer was hurrying but was glancing back often at her, and he was wandering off from the direct line to Resurrection Rock.

She noticed that something on the shore seemed to disturb him and, looking about, Ethel observed that Asa Redbird had emerged from the trees and was hastening after them. Asa was carrying his rifle, and this reinforcement evidently decided Kincheloe to abandon his race for the Rock; and although Ethel had been endeavoring only to reach the Rock before Kincheloe, now she called to him as he circled away to return to the shore and she ran after him. The dogs dashed ahead of her and jumped upon their master in all good friendship, yet they impeded his retreat, so Miss Platt's husband halted and waited.

When she had gone to his room in the night and his wife had protected him, Ethel had thought of him as frightened and cringing; just now, when she had been pursuing him, she had fancied him pale, with set lips and with eyes shifting and bright. But she found him quite different from her imaginings, so different indeed that she recalled his remarkable recovery of composure when she had surprised him listening at her grandfather's door.

"Hello, Miss Carew," he hailed her before she had time to catch her breath. "Changing your mind? You're not going to make a daybreak call after all?"

"Daybreak call?" she repeated. "Where?"

"On your friend of the train; or weren't you bound out to visit him?" he asked with unpleasant implication.