A blinding flare and an explosion startled her about. It was only a flashlight fired by one of the newspaper photographers who had placed his camera during the halt. Harriet opened the door to the tonneau. Two men occupied the seats in the middle of the car; it was a large, seven passenger machine. "I will take this seat, please," she said to the man nearer. He got out and she sat down. Those who had been trying to start the car which she had driven across the road, had given up the task and were pushing it away to one side. Harriet sat down in front of Eaton—it was still by that name she thought of him; her feelings refused the other name, though she knew now it was his real one. She understood now her impulse which had driven her to try to block the road to her father's house if only for a moment; they were taking him there to deliver him up to Avery—to her father—who were consulting there over what his fate was to be.
She put her hand on his; his fingers closed upon it, but after his first response to her grasp he made no other; and now, as the lights showed him to her more clearly, she was terrified to see how unable he was to defend himself against anything that might be done to him. His calmness was the calmness of exhaustion; his left arm was bound tightly to his side; his eyes, dim and blank with pain and weariness, stared only dully, dazedly at all around.
The car started, and she sat silent, with her hand still upon his, as they went on to her father's house.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FLAW IN THE LEFT EYE
Santoine, after Harriet had left the library, stood waiting until he heard the servant go out and close the door; he had instructed the man and another with him to remain in the hall. The blind man felt no physical weakness; he was wholly absorbed in the purpose for which he had dressed and come downstairs; now, as he heard Avery start forward to help him, he motioned him back. It was the rule in Santoine's house that the furniture in the rooms he frequented should be kept always in the same positions; the blind man could move about freely, therefore, in these rooms.
He walked slowly now to a large chair beside the table in the center of the room and sat down, resting his arm on the table; when he felt the familiar smoothness of the table under his finger-tips he knew he was facing the part of the room where the sound he had just heard had told him Avery must be.
"When did you learn that Eaton was Hugh Overton, Avery?" he asked.
"To-day."