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Show Blind Maiis Eyej BY WILUAM MacHARG EDWIN DALMER, Illustrations by R.H. Livingstone J C.!fl'ltT. yy t-'"rn-t- SHOWN, AMP COMPANY CHAPTER XV Continued. 11 Slie halted suddenly In her dressing, pnrpleed and troubled. Her father had gent Kton to tho country club with Avery; there A vary, plainly, had forced Katoa Into the polo game. By her futlier'i instruction? Clearly there seamed te have been purpose In what) had been done, aud purpose which had not been confided to her- For how could they hare suspected Eaton weuJd btray himself In the jnme uuleaa they had alo suspected that he had played polo before? To UHpoct that, they moat at least hare some theory aa to who Eaton was. Put her father had no such theory; he ftud been expending unavalllngly, so far, every effort to ascertain Eaton's connections. So her thoughts led her only Into deeper and greater perplexity, perplex-ity, but with them came sudden nnd unaccountable resentment against Avery. ' At seven Harriet went In to dinner with her father. The blind man was alone", he had been awaiting her, and tihey were served at oace. All through Wi dinner she was nervous and moody; for she knew she was going to do something she had never done before ; she was going to conceal something from her father. She told of Eaton's reception at the country ' club, and of his taking part In the polo practice and playing badly; but of her own Impression that Euton knew the game nnd her present conviction con-viction that Donald Avery had seen even more than that, she said nothing. noth-ing. She watched her father's face, kut she could see there no consciousness conscious-ness that she was omitting anything In her account. : An hour later, when after rending aloud to him for a time, he dismissed her, she hesitated before going. "You've seen Donald?" she asked. I "Yes." .' "What did he tell you?" "The same as you have told, though not quite so fully." She wag outside the door and In the hall before realization came to her that her father's reply could mean only that Donald, like herself, had .concealed his discovery of Eaton's ability to play Polo. Why Donald had not told, she could not Imagine; the only conclusion she could reach ra Mint Donald's tllence In some way menaced Eaton ; for suddenly now It came to her what this must mean to Eaton. All that he had been so careful to hide regarding himself and his connections must be obtainable by Avery now, and Avery, for some 'purpose of his own, was withholding betrayal to make use of It as he might see fit. She moved once more to return to her father; again she stopped; then, swiftly, she turned and went downstairs. down-stairs. She looked hurriedly about for Avery. She did not And him, nor at first did she find Eaton either. She discovered him presently in the music jtoom with Blatchford. Blatchford at once excused himself, tired evidently of his task of watching over Eaton. Harriet caught herself together and controlled herself to her usual manner. man-ner. "What shall It be this evening, Mr. Eaton?" she asked. "Music, billiards?" "Billiards, If you like," he responded. respond-ed. They went up to the billiard room, nnd for an hour played steadily; but her mind was not upon the game nor, he savr, was his. Finally, as they ended a game, he put hU cue back in the rack and faced her. "Miss Santoine," he said, "I want to ask a favor." "What is it?" "I want to go out unaccompanied." "Why?" "I wish to speak to a friend who will be waiting for me." "How do you know?" "He got word to me at the country coun-try club today. Excuse me I did not mean to Inform on Mr. Avery ; he was really most vigilant. I believe he only made one slip." "He was not the only one observing you." "I suppose not. In fact, I wai certain cer-tain of It. However, I received a message mes-sage which was undoubtedly authentic authen-tic and had not been overseen." "But you were not able to make reply." "I was able to receive all that was necessary." She considered for a moment. "What do yon want me to do?" "Either because of my presence or because of what has happened or j perhaps normally you have at least four men about the grounds, two of whom seem to oe constantly on duty to observe anyone who may approach. I wish you to otder them to let me pass and go to a place perhaps ten minutes' walk from here. If you do ao, I will return at the latest within talf an hour" (fee glanced at his watch) " to be definite, before a quarter quar-ter of eleven." "Why should I do this?" He came close to her and faced her. "What do you think of me now, Miss Santoine?" "Why" "You are certain now, are you not, that I had nothing to do with the attack at-tack on your father that Is, in any other connection than that the attack mlrht h mjnt ffr mo T Hnlorl VPQ- terday that the men In the automobile meant to run me down ; yon did not accept ac-cept that denial. I may as well admit to you that I know perfectly well they meant to kill me. They are likely to try again to kill me." "We recognize that too," she answered. an-swered. "The men on watch about the house are warned to protect you as well as watch you." "I appreciate that." "But are they all you have to fear, Mr. Eaton?" She was thinking of Donald Avery. He seemed to recognize what was In her mind ; his eyes, as he gazed Intently In-tently at her, clouded, then darkened still more with some succeeding thought. "No, not all." "And It will aid you to to protect yourself If you see your friend tonight?" to-night?" ''Yes." "But why should not one of Father's Fa-ther's men be with you?" "Unless I were alone, my friend would not appear." "I see." He moved away from her, then came back ; the Importance to him of what he was asking was very plain to her he was shaking nervously with it. "Miss Santoine," he said intently, "you do not think badly of me now. I do not have to doubt that; I can see It; you have wanted me to see it. I ask you to trust me for a few minutes tonight. I cannot tell you whom I wish to see or why, except that the man comes to do me a service and to endanger no one except those trying to injure me." She herself was trembling with her desire to help him, but recollection of her father held her back ; then swiftly there came to her the thought of Gabriel Ga-briel Warden ; because Warden had "It'a All Right, Willis," She Said Qui etly. tried to help him In some way t.nd for some reason which she did not know Warden had been killed. And feeling that In helping him there might be danger to herself, she suddenly tnd eagerly welcomed that danger, itnd made her decision. "You'll promise, Mr. Eaton, not to try to leave?" "Yes." "Let us go out," she said. She led the way downstairs and, In the hall, picked up a cape ; he threw It over her shoulders and brought his overcoat and cap. But in his absorption absorp-tion he forgot to put them on until, as they went out into the garden together, to-gether, she reminded him; then he put on the cap. The night was clear and cool, and no one but themselves seemed to be about the house. "Which way do you want to go?" she asked. He turned toward the forested acres of the grounds which ran down to a ravine at the bottom of which a little stream trickled toward the lake. As they approached the side of this ravine, a man appeared and Investigated them. He recognized the girl's figure and halted. "It's all right, WUiia," she said quietly. qui-etly. "Yes, ma'am." They passed the man and went down the path Into the ravine and up the tiny valley. Eaton halted. "You don't minJ waiting here a few moments for me?" "No," she said. "Yon will return hrer "Tea," he said ; and with that permission, per-mission, he left her. Both had spoken so that the man above could not have heard ; and Harriet Har-riet now noticed that, as her companion compan-ion hurried ahead, he went almost noiselessly. She stood still, shivering a little now in the cold ; and she listened, lis-tened, she no longer heard his footsteps. foot-steps. What she had done was done; then Just as she wus telling herself that it must be many moments before she would know whether he was coming com-ing back, she heard him returning; at some little distance, he spoke her name so as not to frighten her. She knew at once It was he, but a change In the tone surprised her. She stepped forward to meet him. "You found your friend?" "Yes." "What did he tell you? I mean what is wrong that you did not expect ex-pect V She heard his breath come fast "Nothing," he denied. "No; you must tell me! Can't yon trust m?" "Trust you I" he cried. He turned to her and seized her hands. "You ask me to trust you I" "Yes ; I've trusted you. Can't you believe as much In me?" "Believe in you, Miss Santoine!" He crushed her fingers In his grasp. "Oh, my God, I wish I could !" "You wish you could?" she echoed. The tone of It struck her like a blow, and she tore her hands away. "What do you mean by that?" He made no reply but stood staring at her through the dark. "We must go back," he said queerly. "You're cold." She did not answer but started back up the path to the house. He seemed to have caught himself together against some impulse that stirred him strongly. "The man out there who saw us? He will report to your father, fa-ther, Miss Santoine?" he asked unsteadily. un-steadily. "Reports for Father are first made to me." "I see." He did not ask her what she was going to do; If he was assuming assum-ing that her permission to exceed his set limits bound her not to report to her father, she did not accept that assumption, though she would not report re-port to the blind man tonight, for she knew he must now be asleep. But she felt that Eaton was no longer thinking of this. As they entered the house and he helped her lay off her cape, he suddenly faced her. "We are In a strange relation to each other, Miss Santoine stranger than you know," he said unevenly. She waited for him to go on. "When the time comes that you comprehend what our actual relation is, I I want you to know that I understand un-derstand that whatever you have done was done because you believed it might bring about the greater good. I I have seen in you in your father only kindness, high honor, sympathy. sympa-thy. If I did not know" She started, gazing at him, what he said had absolutely no meaning for her. "What Is It that you know?" she demanded. He did not reply; his hand went out to hers, seized It, crushed It, and he started away. As he went up the stairs still, in his absorption, carrying cap and overcoat she stood staring after him in perplexity. CHAPTER XVI The Fight in the Study. Eaton dismissed the man who had been waiting in his rooms for him ; he locked the door and carefully drew down all the window shades. Then he put his overcoat, folded as he had been carrying it under his arm, on the writing table in the center of the room, and from its folds and pockets took a "breast-drill" such as iron workers use in drilling steel, an automatic auto-matic pistol with three clips of cartridges, car-tridges, an electric flashlight and a little bottle of nitroglycerin. He loaded the pistol aad put it In his pocket ; then he carefully inspected the other things. He raised a shade and window, and sat in the dark. The night was cloudy and very dark. He gazed at the south wing of the house; the windows win-dows of the first floor were closed and the curtains drawn; but tonight there was no light in the room. Then in the dark he moved to the table where he had left his overcoat, and distributed In his pockets and within his clothing the articles he had brought; and now he felt again In the overcoat and brought out a short, strong bar of steel curved and flattened at one end a "jimmy" for forcing the windows. Eaton slipped off his shoes and went to his room door ; he opened the door and found the hall dark and quiet. He stepped out, closing his door carefully care-fully behind him, and with great caution cau-tion he descended the stairs. He went to a window in the drawing room which was set In a recess and so placed that it was not visible from other windows in the house. He opened this window and let himself down upon the lawn. He gained the south corner of the wing, unobserved or at least without sign that he had been seen, and went on around It. He stopped at the first high French window on the south. As he tried to slip his Jimmy under the bottom of the sash, the window, to his amazement, amaze-ment, opened silently upon Its hinges; it had not been locked. The heavy curtains within hung Just In front of him ; he put out his hand and parted them. Then he started back in astonishment aston-ishment and crouched close to the ground ; inside the room was a man moving about, flashing an electric torch before him and then exploring an instant in darkness and flashing his torch again. Eaton had not been at all prepared for this; now he knew suddenly that he ought to have been prepared for It If the man within the room wtj not the one who had attacked hint with the motor, he was closely allied wlta that man, and what he was after now was the same thing Eaton was after. He drew his pistol, and loosing the safety, he made It ready to Are; with his left hand, he clung to the short, heavy Jimmy. He stepped into the. great room through the curtains, and treading noiselessly In his stocking feet, he advanced upon the man, moving mov-ing forward In each period of darkness dark-ness between the flashes of the electric elec-tric torch. Now, at the further side of the room, another electric torch flashed out. There were at least two men In the room, working together or rather, one was working, the other super vising; for Eaton heard now a steady, almost Inaudible grinding noise as ths second man worked. Eaton halted again and waited ; If there were two, there might be others. His pulses were beating faster and hotter, and he felt the blood rushing to his head and his hands growing cold with his excitement; but he was conscious of no fear. He crouched and crept forward noiselessly again. No other Hght appeared In the room, and there was no sound elsewhere from the darkness ; but the man who supervised had moved closer to the other. The grinding noise had stopped ; it was followed by a sharp click ; the men, side by side, were bending over something; and the light of the man who had been working, for a fraction of a second shot Into the face of the other. He muttered some short, hoarse imprecation, but before Eaton heard the voice, he had stopped as if struck, and his breath had gone from him. His Instant's glimpse of that fact astonnded, stunned, stupefied him. He could not have seen that man 1 The fact was impossible I He mast have been mad ; his mind must have become unreliable to let him even Imagine It Then came the sound of the voice the voice of the man whose face he had seen I It was he I And, In place of the paralysis of the first Instant now a wild, savage throe of passion seized Eaton'; his pulses leaped so it seemed they must burst his veins, and . he gulped and choked. He had not filled In with Insane fancy the features fea-tures of the man whom he had seen; the voice witnessed too that the man in the dark by the wall was he whom Eaton if he could have dreamed such a fact as now had been disclosed would have circled the world to catch and destroy ; yet now with the destruction de-struction of that man in his power for he had but to aim and empty Ma automatic pistol at five paces such destruction at this moment could not suffice; mere shooting that man would be petty, ineffectual. Eaton's fingers tightened on the handle of hlg pistol, but he held it now not as a weapon to fire but as a dull weight with which to strike. The grip of his left hand clamped onto the short steel bar, and with lips parted breathing once, It seemed, for each heartbeat and yet choking, suffocating he leaped forward. for-ward. At the same instant so that he could not . have been alarmed by Eaton's Ea-ton's leap the man who had been working moved his torch, and the light fell upon Eaton. "Look out !" the man cried In alarm to his companion ; with the word the torch vanished. The man toward whom Eaton rushed did not have time to switch off his light; he dropped It instead; and as Eaton sprang for him, he crouched. Eaton, as he struck forward, found nothing; but below his knees, Eaton felt a man's powerful arms tackling him ; as he struggled to free himself, a swift, savage lunge lifted him from his feet; he was thrown and hurled backward. Eaten dncked his head ftirward ana struggled to turn, as he went down, so that a shoulder and not his head or back would strike the floor first He succeeded In this, though In his effort he dropped the Jimmy. He clung with his right hand to the pistol, and as he struck the floor, the pistol shot off ; the flash of flame spurted toward the celling. Instantly the grip below his knees was loosed ; the man who had tackled him and hurled him back had recoiled In the darkness. Eaton got to hlB feet but crouched and crept about behind a table, aiming aim-ing his pistol over it in the dlreetion In which he supposed the other men must be. The sound of the shot had ceased to roar through the room ; the gases from the powder only made the air heavier. The- other two men In the room also waited; Invisible and silent The only light. In the great curtained room, came from the sinirle electric torch lying on the floor. This lighted the legs of a chair, a corner of a desk and a circle of books In the cases on the wall. As Eaton's eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, dark-ness, he could see vague shapes of furniture. If a man moved, he might be made out; but if he stayed still, probably he would remain indistinguishable. indistin-guishable. The other men seemed also to have recognized this; no one moved in the room, and there was complete silence, (TO BE CONTINUED.) |