She pushed the letters away, then, and sat thinking. Mr. Warden, who
appeared to have known more about Eaton than any one else, had taken
Eaton's side; it was because he had been going to help Eaton that Mr.
Warden had been killed. Would not her father be ready to help Eaton,
then, if he knew as much about him as Mr. Warden had known? But Mr.
Warden, apparently, had kept what he knew even from his own wife; and
Eaton was now keeping it from every one--her father included. She felt
that her father had understood and appreciated all this long before
herself--that it was the reason for his attitude toward Eaton on the
train and, in part, the cause of his considerate treatment of him all
through. She sensed for the first time how great her father's
perplexity must be; but she felt, too, how terrible the injustice must
have been that Eaton had suffered, since he himself did not dare to
tell it even to her father and since, to hide it, other men did not
stop short of double murder.
So, instead of being estranged by Eaton's manner to her father, she
felt an impulse of feeling toward him flooding her, a feeling which she
tried to explain to herself as sympathy. But it was not just sympathy;
she would not say even to herself what it was.
She got up suddenly and went to the door and looked into the hall; a
servant came to her.
"Is Mr. Avery still with Mr. Santoine?" she asked.
"No, Miss Santoine; he has gone out."
"How long ago?"
"About ten minutes."
"Thank you."
She went back, and bundling the correspondence together as it had been
before, she removed the books from a shelf to the left of the door,
slid back another panel and revealed the second wall-safe corresponding
to the one to the right of the door from which she had taken the
papers. The combination of this second safe was known only to her
father and herself. She put the envelopes into it, closed it, and
replaced the books. Then she went to her father's desk, took from a
drawer a long typewritten report of which he had asked her to prepare a
digest, and read it through; consciously concentrating, she began her
work. The servant came at one to tell her luncheon was served,
but--immersed now--she ordered her luncheon brought to the study. At
three she heard Avery's motor, and went to the study door and looked
out as he entered the hall.
"What have you found out, Don?" she inquired.
"Nothing yet, Harry."
"You got no trace of them?"
"No; too many motors pass on that road for the car to be recalled
particularly. I've started what inquiries are possible and arranged to
have the road watched in case they come back this way."
He went past her and up to her father. She returned to the study and
put away her work; she called the stables on the house telephone and
ordered her saddle-horse; and going to her rooms and changing to her
riding-habit, she rode till five. Returning, she dressed for dinner,
and going down at seven, she found Eaton, Avery and Blatchford awaiting
her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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