Eaton turned the page before him. A large print of a picture of
Harriet Santoine looked at him from the paper--her beautiful, deep eyes
gazing at him, as he often had surprised her, frankly interested,
thoughtful, yet also gay. The newspaper had made up its lack of more
definite and extended news by associating her picture with her father's
and printing also a photograph of Donald Avery--"closely associated
with Mr. Santoine in a confidential capacity and rumored to be engaged
to Miss Santoine." Under the blind man's picture was a biography of
the sort which newspaper offices hold ready, prepared for the passing
of the great.
Eaton did not read that then. The mention in the paper of an
engagement between Avery and Harriet Santoine had only confirmed the
relation which Eaton had imagined between them. Avery, therefore, must
have gone on with her; and if she still watched beside her father,
Avery was with her; and if Basil Santoine was dead, his daughter was
turning to Avery for comfort.
This feature somehow stirred Eaton so that he could not stay quiet; he
dressed and then paced back and forth the two or three steps his
compartment allowed him. He stopped now and then to listen; from
outside came the noises of the yard; but he made out no sound within
the car. If it had been occupied as on the days previous, he must have
heard some one coming to the washroom at his end. Was he alone in the
car now? or had the customary moving about taken place before he awoke?
Eaton had seen no one but the newsboy when he looked out the window,
but he felt sure that, if he had been left alone in the car, he was
being watched so that he could not escape.
His hand moved toward the bell, then checked itself. By calling any
one, he now must change his situation only for the worse; as long as
they were letting him stay there, so much the better. He realized that
it was long past the time when the porter usually came to make up his
berth and they brought him breakfast; the isolation of the car might
account for this delay, but it was more likely that he was to find
another reason.
Finally, to free himself from his nervous listening for sounds which
never came, he picked up the paper again. A column told of Santoine's
youth, his blindness, his early struggle to make a place for himself
and his final triumph--position, wealth and power gained; Eaton,
reading of Harriet Santoine's father, followed these particulars with
interest; and further down the column his interest became even greater.
He read:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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