suggest hostility, as Avery constantly did; nor,
indeed, was there any evidence of retrogression in her attitude toward
him; she seemed merely to be maintaining the same position; and since
this seemed difficult if they were often together, she avoided him.
Eaton found his life in the house after that first day more strictly
ordered into a routine which he was obliged to keep. He understood
that Santoine, steadily improving but not yet able to leave his bed,
had taken up his work again, propped up by pillows; one of the nurses
had been dismissed; the other was only upon day duty. But Eaton did
not see Santoine at all; and though he learned that Miss Davis or
another stenographer, whose name was West, came daily to the house, he
never was in a position again to encounter any outsider either coming
or going. Besides the servants of the house, he met Blatchford, with
whom Eaton usually breakfasted; he also lunched with Blatchford, and
Harriet sometimes--sometimes with Avery; he dined with Blatchford and
Avery or with all three.

At other times, except that he was confined to the house or to a small
space of the grounds about it and was kept under constant surveillance,
he was left largely to his own devices; and these at least sufficed to
let him examine morning and night, the vase in which he was to find the
signal that was to be left for him; these permitted examination of
window-locks in other rooms, if not in Santoine's study; these
permitted the examination of many other items also and let him follow
at least the outline of the method of Santoine's work.

There was no longer room for Eaton to doubt that Harriet had the
confidence of her father to almost a complete extent. Now that
Santoine was ill, she worked with him daily for hours; and Eaton
learned that she did the same when he was well. But Avery worked with
the blind man too; he too was certainly in a confidential capacity.
Was it not probable then that Avery, and not Harriet, was entrusted
with the secrets of dangerous and ugly matters; or was it possible that
this girl, worshiping her father as she did, could know and be sure
that, because her father approved these matters, they were right?

A hundred times a day, as Eaton saw or spoke with the girl or thought
of her presence near by, this obsessed him. A score of times during
their casual talk upon meeting at meals or elsewhere, he found himself
turned toward some question which would aid him in dete