"You don't believe it because you don't understand yet, dear," Avery declared. "We are going to make you believe it by proving to you it is true." Avery pulled forward one of the leather chairs for her to seat herself and set another for himself facing Eaton. Eaton, gazing across steadily at Avery, was chilled and terrified as he now fully realized for the first time the element which Avery's presence added. What the relations were between Harriet Santoine and Avery he did not know, but clearly they were very close; and it was equally clear that Avery had noticed and disliked the growing friendship between her and Eaton. Eaton sensed now with a certainty that left no doubt in his own mind that as he himself had realized only a moment before that his strongest feeling was the desire to clear himself before Harriet Santoine, so Avery now was realizing that--since some one on the train had certainly made the attack on Santoine--he hoped he could prove before her that that person was Eaton. "Why did you ring the bell in Mr. Santoine's berth?" Avery directed the attack upon him suddenly. "To call help," Eaton answered. Question and answer, Eaton realized, had made some effect upon Harriet Santoine, as he did not doubt Avery intended they should; yet he could not look toward her to learn exactly what this effect was but kept his eyes on Avery. "You had known, then, that he needed help?" "I knew it--saw it then, of course." "When?" "When I found him." "'Found' him?" "Yes." "When was that?" "When I went forward to look for the conductor to ask him about taking a walk on the roof of the cars." "You found him then--that way, the way he was?" "That way? Yes." "How?" "How?" Eaton iterated. "Yes; how, Mr. Eaton, or Hillward, or whatever your name is? How did you find him? The curtains were open, perhaps; you saw him as you went by, eh?" Eaton shook his head. "No; the curtains weren't open; they were closed." "Then why did you look in?" "I saw his hand in the aisle." "Go on." "When I came back it didn't look right to me; its position had not been changed at all, and it hadn't looked right to me before. So I stopped and touched it, and I found that it was cold." "Then you looked into the berth?" "Yes." "And having looked in and seen Mr. Santoine injured and lying as he was, you did not call any one, you did not bring help--you merely leaned across him and pushed the bell and went on quickly out of the car before any one could see you?" "Yes; but I waited on the platform of the next car to see that help did come; and the conductor passed me, and I knew that he and the porter must find Mr. Santoine as they did." "Do you expect us to believe that very peculiar action of yours was the act of an innocent man?" "If I had been guilty of the attack on Mr. Santoine, I'd not have stopped or looked into the berth at all." "If you are innocent, you had, of course, some reason for acting as you did. Will you explain what it was?"