of the room, and looking up, saw that Avery had come into the
room with them. The girl followed. With her entrance into the room
came to him--not any sound from her or anything which he could describe
to himself as either audible or visual--but a strange sensation which
exhausted his breath and stopped his pulse for a beat. To be
accused--even to be suspected--of the crime against Santoine was to
have attention brought to him which--with his unsatisfactory account of
himself--threatened ugly complications. Yet, at this moment of
realization, that did not fill his mind. Whether his long dwelling
close to death had numbed him to his own danger, however much more
immediate it had become, he could not know; probably he had prepared
himself so thoroughly, had inured himself so to expect arrest and
imminent destruction, that now his finding himself confronted with
accusers in itself failed to stir new sensation; but till this day, he
had never imagined or been able to prepare himself for accusation
before one like Harriet Santoine; so, for a moment, thought solely of
himself was a subcurrent. Of his conscious feelings, the terror that
she would be brought to believe with the others that he had struck the
blow against her father was the most poignant.

Harriet Santoine was not looking at him; but as she stood by the door,
she was gazing intently at Avery; and she spoke first:

"I don't believe it, Don!"

Eaton felt the warm blood flooding his face and his heart throb with
gratitude toward her.

"You don't believe it because you don't understand yet, dear," Avery
declared. "We are going to make you believe it by proving to you it is
true."

Avery pulled forward one of the leather chairs for her to seat herself
and set another for himself facing Eaton. Eaton, gazing across
steadily at Avery, was chilled and terrified as he now fully realized
for the first time the element which Avery's presence added. What the
relations were between Harriet Santoine and Avery he did not know, but
clearly they were very close; and it was equally clear that Avery had
noticed and disliked the growing friendship between her and Eaton.
Eaton sensed now with a certainty that left no doubt in his own mind
that as he himself had realized only a moment before that his strongest
feeling was the desire to clear himself before Harriet Santoine, so
Avery now was realizing that--since some one on the train had certainly
made the attack on Sant