commission, and Durrance knew that he had not resigned it when the telegram came. That telegram could have brought only one piece of news, that Feversham's regiment was ordered on active service. The more Durrance reflected, the more certain he felt that he had at last hit upon the truth. Nothing could be more natural than that Castleton should telegraph his good news in confidence to his friends. Durrance had the story now complete, or rather, the sequence of facts complete. For why Feversham should have been seized with panic, why he should have played the coward the moment after he was engaged to Ethne Eustace-at a time, in a word, when every manly quality he possessed should have been at its strongest and truest, remained for Durrance, and indeed, was always to remain, an inexplicable problem. But he put that question aside, classing it among the considerations which he had learnt to estimate as small and unimportant. The simple and true thing-the thing of real importance- emerged definite and clear: Harry Feversham was atoning for his one act of cowardice with a full and an overflowing measure of atonement.
'I shall astonish old Sutch,' he thought, with a chuckle. He took the night mail into Devonshire the same evening, and reached his home before midday.
Chapter XXIII — Mrs. Adair Makes Her Apology
Within the drawing-room at The Pool, Durrance said good-bye to Ethne. He had so arranged it that there should be little time for that leave-taking, and already the carriage stood at the steps of Guessens, with his luggage strapped upon the roof and his servant waiting at the door.
Ethne came out with him on to the terrace, where Mrs. Adair stood at the top of the flight of steps. Durrance held out his hand to her, but she turned to Ethne and said: 'I want to speak to Colonel Durrance before he goes.'
'Very well,' said Ethne. 'Then we will say good-bye here,' she added to Durrance. 'You will write from Wiesbaden? Soon, please!'
'The moment I arrive,' answered Durrance. He descended the steps with Mrs. Adair, and left Ethne standing upon the terrace. The last scene of pretence had been acted out, the months of tension and surveillance had come to an end, and both were thankful for their release. Durrance showed that he was glad even in the briskness of his walk, as he crossed the lawn at Mrs. Adair's side. She, however, lagged, and when she spoke it was in a despondent voice.
'So you are going,' she said. 'In two days' time you will be at Wiesbaden and Ethne at Glenalla. We shall all be scattered. It will be lonely here.'
She had had her way; she had separated Ethne and Durrance for a time at all events; she was no longer to be tortured by the sight of them and the sound of their voices; but somehow her interference had brought her little satisfaction. 'The house will seem very empty after you are all gone,' she said; and she turned at Durrance's side and walked down with him into the garden.
'We shall come back, no doubt,' said Durrance, reassuringly.
Mrs. Adair looked about her garden. The flowers were gone, and the sunlight; clouds stretched across the sky overhead, the green of the grass underfoot was dull, the stream ran grey in the gap between the trees, and the leaves from the branches were blown russet and yellow about the lawns.
'How long shall you stay at Wiesbaden?' she asked.
'I can hardly tell. But as long as it's advisable,' he answered.
'That tells me nothing at all. I suppose it was meant not to tell me anything.'
Durrance did not answer her, and she resented his silence. She knew nothing whatever of his plans; she was unaware whether he meant to break his engagement with Ethne or to hold her to it, and curiosity consumed her. It might be a very long time before she saw him again, and all that long time she must remain tortured with doubts.
'You distrust me?' she said defiantly, and with a note of anger in her voice.
Durrance answered her quite gently: 'Have I no reason to distrust you? Why did you tell me of Captain Willoughby's coming? Why did you interfere?'
'I thought you ought to know.'
'But Ethne wished the secret kept. I am glad to know, very glad. But, after all, you told me, and you were Ethne's friend.'
'Yours, too, I hope,' Mrs. Adair answered, and she exclaimed: 'How could I go on keeping silence? Don't you understand?'
'No.'
Durrance might have understood, but he had never given much thought to Mrs. Adair, and she knew it. The knowledge rankled within her, and his simple 'no' stung her beyond bearing.
'I spoke brutally, didn't I?' she said. 'I told you the truth as brutally as I could. Doesn't that help you to understand?'
Again Durrance said 'No,' and the monosyllable exasperated her out of all prudence, and all at once she found herself speaking incoherently the things which she had thought. And once she had begun, she could not stop. She stood, as it were, outside of herself, and saw that her speech was madness; yet she went on with it.
'I told you the truth brutally on purpose. I was so stung because you would not see what was so visible had you only the mind to see. I wanted to hurt you. I am a bad, bad woman, I suppose. There were you and she in the room talking together in the darkness; there was I alone upon the terrace. It was the same again to-day. You and Ethne in the room, I alone upon the terrace. I wonder whether it will always be so. But you will not say-you will not say.' She struck her hands together with a gesture of despair, but Durrance had no words for her. He walked silently along the garden path towards the stile, and he quickened his pace a little, so that Mrs. Adair had to walk fast to keep up with him. That quickening of the pace was a sort of answer, but Mrs. Adair was not deterred by it. Her madness had taken hold of her.
'I do not think I would have minded so much,' she continued, 'if Ethne had really cared for you; but she never cared more than as a friend cares, just a mere friend. And what's friendship worth?' she asked scornfully.
'Something, surely,' said Durrance.
'It does not prevent Ethne from shrinking from her friend,' cried Mrs. Adair. 'She shrinks from you. Shall I tell you why? Because you are blind. She is afraid. While I–I will tell you the truth-I am glad. When the news first came from Wadi Halfa that you were blind, I was glad; when I saw you in Hill Street, I was glad; ever since, I have been glad-quite glad. Because I saw that she shrank. From the beginning she shrank, thinking how her life would be hampered and fettered,' and the scorn of Mrs. Adair's voice increased, though her voice itself was sunk to a whisper. 'I am not afraid,' she said, and she repeated the words passionately again and again. 'I am not afraid. I am not afraid.'
To Durrance it seemed that in all his experience nothing so horrible had ever occurred as this outburst by the woman who was Ethne's friend, nothing so unforeseen.
'Ethne wrote to you at Wadi Halfa out of pity,' she went on, 'that was all. She wrote out of pity; and, having written, she was afraid of what she had done; and being afraid, she had not courage to tell you she was afraid. You would not have blamed her, if she had frankly admitted it; you would have remained her friend. But she had not the courage.'
Durrance knew that there was another explanation of Ethne's hesitations and timidities. He knew, too, that the other explanation was the true one. But to-morrow he himself would be gone from the Salcombe estuary, and Ethne would be on her way to the Irish Channel and Donegal. It was not worth while to argue against Mrs. Adair's slanders. Besides, he was close upon the stile which separated the garden of The Pool from the fields. Once across that stile, he would be free of Mrs. Adair. He contented himself with saying quietly: 'You are not just to Ethne.'
At that simple utterance the madness of Mrs. Adair went from her. She recognised the futility of all that she had said, of her boastings of courage, of her detractions of Ethne. Her words might be true or not, they could achieve nothing. Durrance was always in the room with Ethne, never upon the terrace with Mrs. Adair. She became conscious of her degradation, and she fell to excuses.
