he demanded.

"One of the people who was on the train! That man--the morning we--the
morning Father was hurt--do you remember, when you came into the dining
car for breakfast and the conductor wanted to seat you opposite a young
man who had just spilled coffee? You sat down at our table instead.
Don't you remember--a little man, nervous, but very strong; a man
almost like an ape?"

He shuddered and then controlled himself. "Nothing!" he answered her
clasp of concern on his arm. "Quite steady again; thanks. Just dizzy;
I guess I was jarred more than I knew. Yes, I remember a fellow the
conductor tried to seat me opposite."

"This was the same man!"

Eaton shook his head. "That could hardly be; I think you must be
mistaken."

"I am not mistaken; it was that man!"

"Still, I think you must be," he again denied.

She stared, studying him. "Perhaps I was," she agreed; but she knew
she had not been. "I am glad, whoever it was, he didn't injure you.
You are all right, aren't you?"

"Quite," he assured. "Please don't trouble about it, Miss Santoine."

He dusted himself off with her help and tried to limp as little as
possible; and when she insisted upon returning to the house, he made no
objection, but he refused to wait while she went back for a car to take
him. They walked back rather silently, she appreciating how
passionately she had expressed herself for him, and he quiet because of
this and other thoughts too.

They found Donald Avery in front of the house looking for them as they
came up. Eaton succeeded in walking without limping; but he could not
conceal the marks on his clothes.

"Harriet, I've just come from your father; he wants you to go to him at
once," Avery directed. "Good morning, Eaton. What's happened?"

"Carelessness," Eaton deprecated. "Got rather in the way of a motor
and was knocked over for it."

Harriet did not correct this to Avery. She went up to her father; she
was still trembling, still sick with horror at what she had seen--an
attempt to kill one walking at her side. She stopped outside her
father's door to compose herself; then she went in.

The blind man was propped up on his bed with pillows into almost a
sitting position; the nurse was with him.

"What did you want, Father?" Harriet asked.

He had recognized her step and had been about to speak to her; but at
the sound of her voice he stopped the words on his lips and changed
them into a direction for the n