"In it—grandfather? What do you mean? He was in what?"
"The killing of the man, Ben."
"What man?"
"The one killed on the Rock."
"But you said Kincheloe did that."
"He did; but for grandfather."
"What—what the devil—" Bennet scolded. He glanced about and shifted his feet as though to rise. If Ethel were going to say things like that, he thought that this was no place to say them; but his impatience to hear her foolishness and to combat her overcame his dread of being overheard. He sat down in his chair but bent close to her.
"Give me all of this," he commanded. "Straight."
So she told him quietly and without passion as "straight" as she could. She did not repeat to him the details of Barney's intimate confidences; but she told him about the manner of meeting Barney and their walk and talk together, and their finding the traces of the man who had slept in the shack opposite Rest Cabin; she told how Barney went to the Rock and how their grandfather watched him; she reported how Bagley had been waiting for Barney, what Bagley had done and what she, herself, had witnessed during the night at St. Florentin; she related how she followed Kincheloe in the morning, and how he turned back, and how Asa and she went to the Rock, and how she returned and accused their grandfather and he had called Barney Loutrelle and she had gone with Barney.
At the beginning she felt that Bennet, if not sympathetic, was not hostile toward her. He interrupted her abruptly several times, demanding that she make certain points clearer; then he angered and several
