Harriet Santoine, still clad only in the heavy robe over her nightdress and in slippers, went from her father's bedroom swiftly down into the study again; what she was going to do there she did not definitely know. She heard, as she descended the stairs, the steward in the hall outside the study calling up the police stations of the neighboring villages and giving news of what had happened and instructions to watch the roads; but as she reached the foot of the stairs, a servant closed the study doors. The great, curtained room in its terrifying disorder was brightly lighted, empty, absolutely still. She had given directions that, except for the removal of Blatchford's body, all must be left as it was in the room till the arrival of the police. She stood an instant with hands pressed against her breast, staring down at the spots upon the floor.
There were three of these spots now—one where Blatchford's body had lain. They were soaking brownly into the rugs but standing still red and thick upon the polished floor. Was one of them Eaton's?
Something within her told her that it was, and the fierce desire to go to him, to help him, was all she felt just now. It was Donald Avery's and her father's accusation of Eaton that had made her feel like this. She had been feeling, the moment before Donald had spoken, that Philip Eaton had played upon her that evening in making her take him to his confederate in the ravine in order to plan and consummate something here. Above her grief and horror at the killing of her cousin and the danger to her father, had risen the anguish of her guilt with Eaton, the agony of her betrayal. But their accusation that Eaton had killed Wallace Blatchford, seeing him, knowing him—in the light—had swept all that away; all there was of her seemed to have risen in denial of that. Before her eyes, half shut, she saw again the body of her cousin Wallace lying in its blood on the floor, with her father kneeling beside it, his blind eyes raised in helplessness to the light; but she saw now another body too—Eaton's—not here—-lying somewhere in the bare, wind-swept woods, shot down by those pursuing him.
She looked at the face of the clock and then down to the pendulum to see whether it had stopped; but the pendulum was swinging. The hands stood at half past one o'clock; now she recalled that, in her first wild gaze about the room when she rushed in with the others, she had seen the hands showing a minute or so short of twenty minutes past one. Not quite a quarter of an hour had passed since the alarm! The pursuit could not have moved far away. She reopened the window through which the pursuers had passed and stepped out onto the dark lawn. She stood drawing the robe about her against the chill night air, dazed, stunned. The house behind her, the stables, the chauffeurs' quarters above the garages, the gardeners' cottages, all blazed now with light, but she saw no one about. The menservants—except the steward—had joined the pursuit; she heard them to the south beating the naked woods and shrubbery and calling to each other. A half mile down the beach she heard shouts and a shot; she saw dimly through the night in that direction a boat without lights moving swiftly out upon the lake.
Her hands clenched and pressed against her breast; she stood straining at the sounds of the man-hunt. It had turned west, it seemed; it was coming back her way, but to the west of the house. She staggered a little and could not stand; she stepped away from the house in the direction of the pursuit; following the way it seemed to be going, she crossed the lawn toward the garage. A light suddenly shone out there, and she went on.
The wide door at the car driveway was pushed open, and some one was within working over a car. His back was toward her, and he was bent over the engine, but, at the glance, she knew him and recoiled, gasping. It was Eaton. He turned at the same instant and saw her.
"Oh; it's you!" he cried to her.
Her heart, which almost had ceased to beat, raced her pulses again. At the sound she had made on the driveway, he had turned to her as a hunted thing, cornered, desperate, certain that whoever came must be against him. His cry to her had recognized her as the only one who could come and not be against him; it had hailed her with relief as bringing him help. He could not have cried out so at that instant at sight of her if he had been guilty of what they had accused. Now she saw too, as he faced her, blood flowing over his face; blood soaked a shoulder of his coat, and his left arm dangling at his side; but now, as he threw back his head and straightened in his relief at finding it was she who had surprised him, she saw in him an exultation and excitement she had never seen before—something which her presence alone could not have caused. To-night, she sensed vaguely, something had happened to him which had changed his attitude toward her and everything else.
"Yes; it's I!" she cried quickly and rushed to him. "It's I! It's I!" wildly she reassured him. "You're hurt!" She touched his shoulder. "You're hurt! I knew you were!"
He pushed her back with his right hand and held her away from him. "Did they hurt your father?"