The blind man did not wait for any answer to this; he straightened suddenly, gripping the arms of his chair, and got up. There was more he wished to ask; in the bitterness he felt at his blindness having been used to make him an unconscious agent in these things of which Avery spoke so calmly, he was resolved that no one who had shared knowingly in them should go unpunished. But now he heard the noise made by approach of Eaton's captors. He had noted it a minute or more earlier; he was sure now that it was definitely nearing the house. He crossed to the window, opened it and stood there listening; the people outside were coming up the driveway. Santoine went into the hall.
"Where is Miss Santoine?" he inquired.
The servant who waited in the hall told him she had gone out. As Santoine stood listening, the sounds without became coherent to him.
"They have taken Overton, Avery," he commented. "Of course they have taken no one else. I shall tell those in charge of him that he is not the one they are to hold prisoner but that I have another for them here."
The blind man heard no answer from Avery. Those having Overton in charge seemed to be coming into the house; the door opened and there were confused sounds. Santoine stood separating the voices.
"What is it?" he asked the servant.
"Mr. Eaton—Mr. Overton, sir—fainted as they were taking him out of the motor-car, sir. He seems much done up, sir."
Santoine recognized that four or five men, holding or carrying their prisoner between them, had come in and halted in surprise at sight of him.
"We have him!" he heard one of them cry importantly to him. "We have him, sir! and he's Hugh Overton, who killed Latron!"
Then Santoine heard his daughter's voice in a half cry, half sob of hopeless appeal to him; Harriet ran to him; he felt her cold, trembling fingers clasping him and beseeching him. "Father! Father! They say—they say—they will—"