Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/59

Rh car, showed that Amy and Constance were getting into bed; the Englishman was wide awake in plain determination not to go to bed until his accustomed Nottingham hour. Eaton, drawing his curtains together and buttoning them from the inside, undressed and went to bed. A half-hour later the passage of some one through the aisle and the sudden dimming of the crack of light which showed above the curtains told him that the lights in the car had been turned down. Eaton closed his eyes, but sleep was far from him.

Presently he began to feel the train beginning to labor with the increasing grade and the deepening snow. It was well across the State line and into Idaho; it was nearing the mountains, and the weather was getting colder and the storm more severe. Eaton lifted the curtain from the window beside him and leaned on one elbow to look out. The train was running through a bleak, white desolation; no light and no sign of habitation showed anywhere. Eaton lay staring out, and now the bleak world about him seemed to assume toward him a cruel and merciless aspect. The events of the day ran through his mind again with sinister suggestion. He had taken that train for a certain definite, dangerous purpose which required his remaining as obscure and as inconspicuous as possible; yet already he had been singled out for attention. So far, he was sure, he had received no more than that—attention, curiosity concerning him. He had not suffered recognition; but that might come at any moment. Could he risk longer waiting to act?

He dropped on his back upon the bed and lay with his hands clasped under his head, his eyes staring up at the roof of the car.