shot. Santoine counted that, if his servants had survived, one of them
must be coming to tell him what had happened. But there was no noise
now nor any movement at all below. His side had been beaten, or both
sides had ceased to exist. Those alternatives alone occurred to the
blind man; the number of shots fired within the confines of the room
below precluded any other explanation. He did not imagine the fact
that the battle had been fought in the dark; himself perpetually in the
dark, he thought of others always in the light.

The blind man stood barefooted on the floor, his hands clasping in one
of the bitterest moments of his rebellion against, and defiance of, his
helplessness of blindness. Below him--as he believed--his servants had
been sacrificing life for him; there in that room he held in trust that
which affected the security, the faith, the honor of others; his
guarding that trust involved his honor no less. And particularly, now,
he knew he was bound, at whatever cost, to act; for he did not doubt
now but that his half-prisoned guest, whom Santoine had not
sufficiently guarded, was at the bottom of the attack. The blind man
believed, therefore, that it was because of his own retention here of
Eaton that the attack had been made, his servants had been killed, the
private secrets of his associates were in danger. Santoine crossed to
the door of the hall and opened it and called. No one answered
immediately; he started to call again; then he checked himself and shut
the door, and opened that to the top of the stairs descending to his
study below.

The smoke and fumes of the firing rushed into his face; it half choked
him; but it decided him. He was going to go down. Undoubtedly there
was danger below; but that was why he did not call again at the other
door for some one else to run a risk for him. Basil Santoine, always
held back and always watched and obliged to submit to guard even of
women in petty matters because of his blindness, held one thing dearer
far than life--and that thing was the trust which other men reposed in
him. Since it was that trust which was threatened, the impulse now, in
that danger, to act for himself and not be protected and pushed back by
any one who merely could see, controlled him.

He put his hand on the rail and started to descend the stairs. He was
almost steady in step and he had firm grasp on the rail; he noticed
that now to wonder at it. When he had aroused