hat, I want to call your attention to the
peculiarity of our mutual positions on the train. You had asked for
and were occupying Section Three in the third sleeper, in order--I
assume and, I believe, correctly--to avoid being put in the same car
with me. In the night, the second sleeper--the car next in front of
yours--was cut off from the train and left behind. That made me occupy
in relation to the forward part of the train exactly the same position
as you had occupied before the car ahead of you had been cut out. I
was in Section Three in the third sleeper from the front."

Eaton stared at Santoine, fascinated; what had been only vague, half
felt, half formed with himself, was becoming definite, tangible, under
the blind man's reasoning. He was aware that Harriet Santoine was
looking alternately from him to her father, herself startled by the
revelation thus passionlessly recited. What her father was saying was
new to her; he had not taken his daughter into his confidence to this
extent.

Eaton's hands closed instinctively, in his emotion. "What do you mean?"

"You understand already," Santoine asserted. "The attack made on me
was meant for you. Some one stealing through the cars from the front
to the rear of the train and carrying in his mind the location Section
Three in the third car, struck through the curtains by mistake at me
instead of you. Who was that, Eaton?"

Eaton sat unanswering, staring.

"You did not realize before, that the man on the train meant to murder
you?" Santoine demanded.

"No," said Eaton.

"I see you understand it now; and that it was the same man--or some one
accompanying the man--who tried to run you down this morning. Who is
that man?"

"I don't know," Eaton answered.

"You mean you prefer to shield him?"

"Shield him?"

"That is what you are doing, is it not? For, even if you don't know
the man directly, you know in whose cause and under whose direction he
murdered Warden--and why and for whom he is attempting to murder you."

Eaton remained silent.

In his intensity, Santoine had lifted himself from his pillows. "Who
is that man?" he challenged. "And what is that connection between you
and me which, when the attack found and disabled me instead of you,
told him that--in spite of his mistake--his result had been
accomplished? told him that, if I was dying, a repetition of the attack
against you was unnecessary?"

Eaton knew that he had grown very pale; H