ed not think of him yet as actively hunted,
only watched; with daylight the hunt would begin. Would he be able to
avoid the watchers and escape before the actual hunt for him began?

She went out into the hall to the telephone. She could not get the use
of the 'phone at once; the steward was posted there; the calls upon the
'phone were continual--from neighbors who, awakened to learn the news
of Blatchford's death and the hunt for his murderer, called to offer
what help they could, and from the newspapers, which somehow had been
notified. The telephones in the bedrooms all were on this wire. There
was a private telephone in the library; somehow she could not bring
herself to enter that room, closed and to be left with everything in
its disorder until the arrival of the police. The only other telephone
was in her father's bedroom.

She took advantage of a momentary interruption in the calls to call up
the local police station. Hearing her name, the man at the other end
became deferential at once; he told her what was being done, confirming
what she already knew; the roads were being watched and men had been
posted at all near-by railway stations and at the stopping points of
the interurban line to prevent Eaton from escaping that way. The man
spoke only of Eaton; he showed the conviction--gathered, she felt sure,
by telephone conversation with Donald Avery--that Eaton was the
murderer.

"He ain't likely to get away, Miss Santoine," he assured her. "He's
got no shoes, I understand, and he has one or maybe two shots through
him."

She shrunk back and nearly dropped the 'phone at the vision which his
words called up; yet there was nothing new to her in that vision--it
was continually before her eyes; it was the only thing of which she
could think.

"You'll call me as soon as you know anything more," she requested;
"will you call me every hour?"

She hung up, on receiving assurance of this.

A servant brought a written paper. She took it before she recognized
that it was not for her but for the steward. It was a short statement
of the obvious physical circumstances of the murder, evidently dictated
by her father and intended for the newspapers. She gave it to Fairley,
who began reading it over the telephone to the newspapers. She
wandered again to the west windows. She was not consciously listening
to the telephone conversation in the hall; yet enough reached her to
make her know that reporters were rus