"He would recover from any injury which was not inevitably fatal. He was in perfect physical condition, and I never have known a patient to grasp so completely the needs of his own case and to help the surgeon as much by his control of himself."
Eaton looked toward the window, breathing hard. "I heard the newsboys—"
Sinclair shrugged. "The papers print what they can get and in the way which seems most effective to them," was his only comment.
Eaton pulled himself together. So Santoine was neither dead nor dying. Therefore, at worst, the charge of murder would not be made; and at best—what? He was soon to find out; the papers evidently were entirely in error or falsely informed. Basil Santoine was still at the other end of the car, and his daughter would be with him there. But as Eaton followed Sinclair out of the compartment into the aisle, he halted a moment—the look of the car was so entirely different from what he had expected. A nurse in white uniform sat in one of the seats toward the middle of the car, sewing; another nurse, likewise clothed in white, had just come out from the drawing-room at the end of the car; Avery and Sinclair apparently had been playing cribbage, for Avery sat at a little table in the section which had been occupied by Santoine, with the cards and cribbage board in front of him. The surgeon led Eaton to the door of the drawing-room, showed him in and left him.
Harriet Santoine was sitting on the little lounge opposite the berth where her father lay. She was watching the face of her father, and as Eaton stood in the door, he saw her lean forward and gently touch her father's hand; then she turned and saw Eaton.
"Here is Mr. Eaton, Father," she said.
"Sit down," Santoine directed.
Harriet made room for Eaton upon the seat beside her; and Eaton, sitting down, gazed across at the blind man in the berth. Santoine was lying flat on his back, his bandaged head turned a little toward Eaton and supported by pillows; he was not wearing his dark glasses, and his eyes were open. Eyes of themselves are capable of no expression except as they may be clear or bloodshot, or by the contraction or dilation of the pupils, or as they shift or are fixed upon some object: their "expression" is caused by movements of the lids and brows and other parts of the face. Santoine's eyes had the motionlessness of the eyes of those who have been long blind; seeing nothing, with pupils which did not change in size, they had only the abstracted look which, with men who see, accompanies deep thought. The blind man was very weak and must stay quite still; and he recognized it; but he knew too that his strength was more than equal to the task of recovery, and he showed that he knew it. His mind and will were, obviously, at their full activity, and he had fully his sense of hearing.
This explained to Eaton the better color in his daughter's face; yet she was still constrained and nervous; evidently she had not found her ordeal over with the start of convalescence of her father. Her lips trembled now as she turned to Eaton; but she did not speak directly to him yet; it was Basil Santoine who suddenly inquired:
"What is it they call you?"