"Visit him?" she iterated, stupid in her astonishment at this tack which he had taken.
"Down, Lad!" Kincheloe yelled at the dog who had leaped on him again, and he struck at the collie too roughly. He glanced up at Ethel boldly, too boldly; and he carefully drew himself straight.
She had been thinking that crime and fear of consequences would have weakened this languorous, sensuous man whom she had known as Miss Platt's husband; but if he had been guilty of a crime, the result was to make him bolder than before.
"What were you coming out here for?" she demanded of him."
"I?" he said. "Why, I was following you."
"Following in front of me?"
"Oh, I thought you were steering this way."
"Because you knew I had reason to come out to see what you did last night? What did you do at the Rock last night? And why? Why did you do it?"
"Why did I do what?" he demanded of her in reply. "What are you talking about?"
"About what you did to—"
"To whom?"
"To Mr. Loutrelle."
"Oh!" he laughed suddenly and queerly. "Oh!"
A few minutes ago she had thought of seizing Kincheloe when she caught him and of somehow holding him under restraint, but now she was recoiling from him.
"Are you crazy, Miss Carew?" he challenged, advancing a little. "Mr. Loutrelle's your dear friend of the train, I suppose. Why, I haven't even seen him—not even seen him. Why should I do anything to him, anyway? Tell me that!"
