feeling that something else more
definite and conclusive was coming. She had paled after the flush in
which she had spoken in Eaton's defense, and her hands in her lap were
clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed only as spots of white.

Eaton controlled himself to keep his voice steady.

"What do you mean by that question?" he asked.

"I mean that--however innocent or guilty may be the chance of your
being at Mr. Warden's the night he was killed--you'll have a hard time
proving that you did not wait and watch and take this train because
Basil Santoine had taken it; and that you were not following him. Do
you deny it?"

Eaton was silent.

"You asked the Pullman conductor for a Section Three after hearing him
assign Mr. Santoine to Section Three in this car. Do you deny that you
did this so as not to be put in the same car with him?"

Eaton, in his uncertainty, still said nothing. Connery, bringing the
paper in his hand nearer to the window again, glanced down once more at
the statement Eaton had made. "I asked you who you knew in Chicago,"
he said, "and you answered 'No one.' That was your reply, was it not?"

"Yes."

"You still make the same statement?"

"Yes."

"You know no one in Chicago?"

"No one," Eaton repeated.

"And certainly no one there knows you well enough to follow your
movements in relation to Mr. Santoine. That's a necessary assumption
from the fact that you know no one at all there."

The conductor pulled a telegram from his pocket and handed it to Avery,
who, evidently having already seen it, passed it on to Harriet
Santoine. She took it, staring at it mechanically and vacantly; then
suddenly she shivered, and the yellow paper which she had read slipped
from her hand and fluttered to the floor. Connery stooped and picked
it up and handed it toward Eaton.

"This is yours," he said.

Eaton had sensed already what the nature of the message must be, though
as the conductor held it out to him he could read only his name at the
top of the sheet and did not know yet what the actual wording was
below. Acceptance of it must mean arrest, indictment for the crime
against Basil Santoine; and that, whether or not he later was
acquitted, must destroy him; but denial of the message now would be
hopeless.

"It is yours, isn't it?" Connery urged.

"Yes; it's mine," Eaton admitted; and to make his acceptance definite,
he took the paper from Connery. As he looked dully down at it,