"I understand. In the meantime, I am not to be allowed to communicate at all with any one outside?" "That might depend upon the circumstances." He gazed at the telephone instrument on the desk. "Miss Santoine, a moment ago I tried to telephone, when I--" He described the incident to her. The color on her cheeks heightened. "Some one was appointed to listen on the wire?" he challenged. "Yes." She hesitated, and then she added, in the manner in which she had directed him to the guard outside the house: "And besides, I believe there are--or will be--the new phonographic devices on every line, which record both sides of a conversation. Subject to that, you may use the telephone." "Thank you," said Eaton grimly. "I suppose if I were to write a letter, it would be taken from me and opened and read." She colored ruddier and made no comment. "And if I wished to go to the city, I would be prevented or followed?" "Prevented, for the present," she replied. "Thank you." "That is all?" The interview had become more difficult for her; he saw that she was anxious to have it over. "Just one moment more, Miss Santoine. Suppose I resist this?" "Yes?" "Your father is having me held here in what I might describe as a free sort of confinement, but still in confinement, without any legal charge against me. Suppose I refuse to submit to that--suppose I demand right to consult, to communicate with some one in order, let us say, to defend myself against the charge of having attacked your father. What then?" "I can only answer as before, Mr. Eaton." "That I will be prevented?" "For the present. I don't know all that Father has ordered done about you; but he is awaiting the result of several investigations. The telegrams you received doubtless are being traced to their sources; other inquiries are being made. As you have only lately come back to America, they may extend far and take some time." "Thank you," he acknowledged. He went to the door, opened it and went out; he closed it after him and left her alone. Harriet stood an instant vacantly staring after him; then she went to the door and fastened it with a catch. She came back to the great table-desk--her blind father's desk--and seated herself in the great chair, his chair, and buried her face in her hands. She had seemed--and she knew that she had seemed--quite composed as she talked to Eaton; now she was not composed. Her face was burning hot; her hands, against her cheeks, were cold; tremors of feeling shook her as she thought of the man who just had left her. Why, she asked herself, was she not able to make herself treat this man in the way that her mind told her she should have treated him? That he might be the one who had dealt the blow intended to kill her father--her being could not and would not accept that. Yet, the only reason she had to deny it, was her feeling.