"Are they looking for any one, Miss Santoine—any one besides me in connection with the attack upon your father?"
She glanced at Avery and did not answer. Avery's eyes narrowed. "We are quite satisfied with what we have been doing," he answered.
"Then they are not looking, Miss Santoine!"
Her lips pressed together, and again it was Avery who answered. "We have not said so."
"I must assume it, then," Eaton said to the girl without regarding Avery. "I have been watching as well as I could since they shut me up here, and I have listened, but I haven't found any evidence that anything more is being done. So I'm obliged to assume that nothing is being done. The few people who know about the attack on your father are so convinced and satisfied that I am the one who did it that they aren't looking any further. Among the people moving about on the train, the—the man who made the attack is being allowed to move about; he could even leave the train, if he could do so without being seen and was willing to take his chance in the snow; and when the train goes on, he certainly will leave it!"
Harriet Santoine turned questioningly to Avery again.
"I am not asking anything of you, you see," Eaton urged. "I'm not asking you to let me go or to give me any—any increase of liberty which might make it possible for me to escape. I—I'm only warning you that Mr. Avery and the conductor are making a mistake; and you don't have to have any faith in me or any belief that I'm telling the truth when I say that I didn't do it! I'm only warning you, Miss Santoine, that you mustn't let them stop looking! Why, if I had done it, I might very likely have had an accomplice whom they are going to let escape. It's only common sense, you see."
"That is what you wanted to say?" Avery asked.
"That is it," Eaton answered.
"We can go, then, Harriet."