"No," Eaton denied.
"I think you were; and I think that a few minutes ago when I said you were not surprised by the attempt made to-day to run you down, you were also going to speak of it; for that attempt makes clear the meaning of the telegram. Its meaning was not clear to me before, you understand. It said only that you were known and followed. It did not say why you were followed. I could not be certain of that; there were several possible reasons why you might be followed—even that the 'one' who 'was following' might be some one secretly interested in preventing you from an attack on me. Now, however, I know that the reason you feared the man who was following was because you expected him to attack you. Knowing that, Eaton—knowing that, 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.