PROFITS
'WHAT do you want? Who are you?' asked Ki Drownlands, when he had sufficiently recovered his self-possession to see that some one was clinging to him, and that that person was a woman.
'Help! Come back! Father is ill.'
'I don't care. Let go. You hurt me.'
She hurt him by her touch on his boot! His nerves were thrilling, and the pressure of her fingers was unendurable in the surexcitation of every fibre of his system.
'Oh, help! help!' She would not relax her hold.
'I cannot. I've my own concerns to attend.'
Drownlands remained silent for a moment. He was shivering as one in an ague fit—shivering as though the marrow in his bones were touched with frost. Presently he asked in a voice of constraint—
'How long have you been here? What have you seen?'