Ethne to-night. I mistook the cause of it, that's evident. I was a fool. But there must have been a cause. The gift of laughter had been restored to her. Her gravity, her air of calculation, had vanished. She became just what she was five years ago.'
'Exactly,' Mrs. Adair answered. 'Just what she was before Mr. Feversham disappeared from Ramelton. You are so quick, Colonel Durrance. Ethne had good news of Mr. Feversham this morning.'
Durrance turned quickly towards her, and Mrs. Adair felt a pleasure at his abrupt movement. She had provoked the display of some emotion, and the display of emotion was preferable to his composure.
'Are you quite sure?' he asked.
'As sure as that you gave her the worst of news to-night,' she replied.
But Durrance did not need the answer. Ethne had made another slip that evening, and though unnoticed at the time, it came back to Durrance's memory now. She had declared that Feversham still drew an allowance from his father. 'I heard it only to-day,' she had said.
'Yes, Ethne heard news of Feversham to-day,' he said slowly. 'Did she make a mistake five years ago? There was some wrong thing Harry Feversham was supposed to have done. But was there really more misunderstanding than wrong? Did she misjudge him? Has she to-day learnt that she misjudged him?'
'I will tell you what I know. It is not very much. But I think it is fair that you should know it.'
'Wait a moment, please, Mrs. Adair,' said Durrance, sharply. He had put his questions rather to himself than to his companion, and he was not sure that he wished her to answer them. He walked abruptly away from her and leaned upon the balustrade with his face towards the garden.
It seemed to him rather treacherous to allow Mrs. Adair to disclose what Ethne herself evidently intended to conceal. But he knew why Ethne wished to conceal it. She wished him never to suspect that she retained any love for Harry Feversham. On the other hand, however, he did not falter from his own belief. Marriage between a man crippled like himself and a woman active and vigorous like Ethne could never be right unless both brought more than friendship. He turned back to Mrs. Adair.
'I am no casuist,' he said. 'But here disloyalty seems the truest loyalty of all. Tell me what you know, Mrs. Adair. Something might be done perhaps for Feversham. From Assouan or Suakin something might be done. This news-this good news came, I suppose, this afternoon when I was at home.'
'No, this morning when you were here. It was brought by a Captain Willoughby, who was once an officer in Mr. Feversham's regiment.'
'He is now Deputy-Governor of Suakin,' said Durrance. 'I know the man. For three years we were together in that town. Well?'
'He sailed down from Kingsbridge. You and Ethne were walking across the lawn when he landed from the creek. Ethne left you and went forward to meet him. I saw them meet, because I happened to be looking out of this window at the moment.'
'Yes, Ethne went forward. There was a stranger whom she did not know. I remember.'
'They spoke for a few moments, and then Ethne led him towards the trees, at once, without looking back-as though she had forgotten,' said Mrs. Adair. That little stab she had not been able to deny herself, but it evoked no sign of pain.
'As though she had forgotten me, you mean,' said Durrance, quietly completing her sentence. 'No doubt she had.'
'They went together into the little enclosed garden on the bank,' and Durrance started as she spoke. 'Yes, you followed them,' continued Mrs. Adair, curiously. She had been puzzled as to how Durrance had missed them.
'They were there then,' he said slowly, 'on that seat, in the enclosure, all the while.'
Mrs. Adair waited for a more definite explanation of the mystery, but she got none.
'Well?' he asked.
'They stayed there for a long while. You had gone home across the fields before they came outside into the open. I was in the garden, and indeed happened to be actually upon the bank.'
'So you saw Captain Willoughby. Perhaps you spoke to him?'
'Yes. Ethne introduced him, but she would not let him stay. She hurried him into his boat and back to Kingsbridge at once.'
'Then how do you know Captain Willoughby brought good news of Harry Feversham?'
'Ethne told me that they had been talking of him. Her manner and her laugh showed me no less clearly that the news was good.'
'Yes,' said Durrance, and he nodded his head in assent. Captain Willoughby's tidings had begotten that new pride and buoyancy in Ethne which he had so readily taken to himself. Signs of the necessary something more than friendship-so he had accounted them, and he was right so far. But it was not he who had inspired them. His very penetration and insight had led him astray. He was silent for a few minutes, and Mrs. Adair searched his face in the moonlight for some evidence that he resented Ethne's secrecy. But she searched in vain.
'And that is all?' said Durrance.
'Not quite. Captain Willoughby brought a token from Mr. Feversham. Ethne carried it back to the house in her hand. Her eyes were upon it all the way, her lips smiled at it. I do not think there is anything half so precious to her in all the world.'
'A token?'
'A little white feather,' said Mrs. Adair, 'all soiled and speckled with dust. Can you read the riddle of that feather?'
'Not yet,' Durrance replied. He walked once or twice along the terrace and back, lost in thought. Then he went into the house and fetched his cap from the hall. He came back to Mrs. Adair.
'It was kind of you to tell me this,' he said. 'I want you to add to your kindness. When I was in the drawing- room alone and you came to the window, how much did you hear? What were the first words?'
Mrs. Adair's answer relieved him of a fear. Ethne had heard nothing whatever of his confession.
'Yes,' he said, 'she moved to the window to read a letter by the moonlight. She must have escaped from the room the moment she had read it. Consequently she did not hear that I had no longer any hope of recovering my sight, and that I merely used the pretence of a hope in order to delay our marriage. I am glad of that, very glad.' He shook hands with Mrs. Adair, and said good-night. 'You see,' he added absently, 'if I hear that Harry Feversham is in Omdurman, something might perhaps be done-from Suakin or Assouan, something might be done. Which way did Ethne go?'
'Over to the water.'
'She had her dog with her, I hope.'
'The dog followed her,' said Mrs. Adair.
'I am glad,' said Durrance. He knew quite well what comfort the dog would be to Ethne in this bad hour, and perhaps he rather envied the dog. Mrs. Adair wondered that at a moment of such distress to him he could still spare a thought for so small an alleviation of Ethne's trouble. She watched him cross the garden to the stile in the hedge. He walked steadily forward upon the path like a man who sees. There was nothing in his gait or bearing to reveal that the one thing left to him had that evening been taken away.
Chapter XX — West and East
Durrance found his body-servant waiting up for him when he had come across the fields to his own house of 'Guessens.'
'You can turn the lights out and go to bed,' said Durrance, and he walked through the hall into his study. The name hardly described the room, for it had always been more of a gun-room than a study.
He sat for some while in his chair and then began to walk gently about the room in the dark. There were many cups and goblets scattered about the room, which Durrance had won in his past days. He knew them each one by their shape and position, and he drew a kind of comfort from the feel of them. He took them up one by one and touched them and fondled them, wondering whether, now that he was blind, they were kept as clean and bright as they used to be. This one, a thin-stemmed goblet, he had won in a regimental steeple-chase at Colchester; he
