Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/128

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116
RESURRECTION ROCK

"Well," he hailed her. "Well; you're back from your little sunrise expedition, Kincheloe tells me. Well; well; tell me all about it."

"Grandfather!" she cried, breathless from her excitement and from hurrying. "He was just here. I saw him!" She looked about, but Kincheloe was out of sight now. "He mustn't go away; he—"

"What's the trouble with you?" her grandfather demanded, seizing her arm. "Step in here and explain what's come over you."

He used just enough force to overcome her physical opposition. She did not struggle violently, as his grasp warned her that if she exerted more strength, he would also employ more and overpower her. Besides, he was her grandfather, and he had played with her and carried her about on his back when she was a child; he had petted her and liked to hold her in his arms, producing from his pockets pretty, extravagant trifles; he was the one who used to talk most to her about her mother and tell her what her mother had done when she was a child.

He was angry with her for what she had done in the night and for having gone out early this morning; but he was big and firm-handed and so much as usual, with the faint, familiar odor of shaving soap as always just after he had shaved in the morning, that she cried out confidently: "Grandfather, you don't know what he's done!"

"Who?" he demanded, his grip tightening in an unconscious muscular spasm. He guided her into the front room and closed the door.

"Who done?"

"Kincheloe!"

"What? Miss Platt's husband?" he repeated his