Mrs. Adair answered in her own way. She did not expressly agree. But a certain humility became audible in her voice.
“The mountain village at which Ethne is living,” she said in a low voice, “is called Glenalla. A track strikes up towards it from the road halfway between Rathmullen and Ramelton.” She rose as she finished the sentence and held out her hand. “Shall I see you?”
“You are still in Hill Street?” said Durrance. “I shall be for a time in London.”
Mrs. Adair raised her eyebrows. She looked always by nature for the intricate and concealed motive, so that conduct which sprang from a reason, obvious and simple, was likely to baffle her. She was baffled now by Durrance’s resolve to remain in town. Why did he not travel at once to Donegal, she asked herself, since thither his thoughts undoubtedly preceded him. She heard of his continual presence at his Service Club, and could not understand. She did not even have a suspicion of his motive when he himself informed her that he had travelled into Surrey and had spent a day with General Feversham.
It had been an ineffectual day for Durrance. The general kept him steadily to the history of the campaign from which he had just returned. Only once was he able to approach the topic of Harry Feversham’s disappearance, and at the mere mention of his son’s name the old general’s face set like plaster. It became void of expression and inattentive as a mask.
“We will talk of something else, if you please,” said he; and Durrance returned to London not an inch nearer to Donegal.
Thereafter he sat under the great tree in the inner courtyard of his club, talking to this man and to that, and still unsatisfied with the conversation. All through that June the afternoons and evenings found him at his post. Never a friend of Feversham’s passed by the tree but Durrance had a word for him, and the word led always to a question. But the question elicited no answer except a shrug of the shoulders, and a “Hanged if I know!”
Harry Feversham’s place knew him no more; he had dropped even out of the speculations of his friends.
Toward the end of June, however, an old retired naval officer limped into the courtyard, saw Durrance, hesitated, and began with a remarkable alacrity to move away.
Durrance sprang up from his seat.
“Mr. Sutch,” said he. “You have forgotten me?”
“Colonel Durrance, to be sure,” said the embarrassed lieutenant. “It is some while since we met, but I remember you very well now. I think we met—let me see—where was it? An old man’s memory, Colonel Durrance, is like a leaky ship. It comes to harbour with its cargo of recollections swamped.”
Neither the lieutenant’s present embarrassment nor his previous hesitation escaped Durrance’s notice.
“We met at Broad Place,” said he. “I wish you to give me news of my friend Feversham. Why was his engagement with Miss Eustace broken off? Where is he now?”
The lieutenant’s eyes gleamed for a moment with satisfaction. He had always been doubtful whether Durrance was aware of Harry’s fall into disgrace. Durrance plainly did not know.
“There is only one person in the world, I believe,” said Sutch, “who can answer both your questions.”
Durrance was in no way disconcerted.
“Yes. I have waited here a month for you,” he replied.
Lieutenant Sutch pushed his fingers through his beard, and stared down at his companion.
“Well, it is true,” he admitted. “I can answer your questions, but I will not.”
“Harry Feversham is my friend.”
“General Feversham is his father, yet he knows only half the truth. Miss Eustace was betrothed to him, and she knows no more. I pledged my word to Harry that I would keep silent.”
“It is not curiosity which makes me ask.”
“I am sure that, on the contrary, it is friendship,” said the lieutenant, cordially.
“Nor that entirely. There is another aspect of the matter. I will not ask you to answer my questions, but I will put a third one to you. It is one harder for me to ask than for you to answer. Would a friend of Harry Feversham be at all disloyal to that friendship, if”—and Durrance flushed beneath his sunburn—“if he tried his luck with Miss Eustace?”
The question startled Lieutenant Sutch.
“You?” he exclaimed, and he stood considering Durrance, remembering the rapidity of his promotion, speculating upon his likelihood to take a woman’s fancy. Here was an aspect of the case, indeed, to which he had not given a thought, and he was no less troubled than startled. For there had grown up within him a jealousy on behalf of Harry Feversham as strong as a mother’s for a favourite second son. He had nursed with a most pleasurable anticipation a hope that, in the end, Harry would come back to all that he once had owned, like a rethroned king. He stared at Durrance and saw the hope stricken. Durrance looked the man of courage which his record proved him to be, and Lieutenant Sutch had his theory of women. “Brute courage—they make a god of it.”
“Well?” asked Durrance.
Lieutenant Sutch was aware that he must answer. He was sorely tempted to lie. For he knew enough of the man who questioned him to be certain that the lie would have its effect. Durrance would go back to the Sudan, and leave his suit unpressed.
“Well?”
Sutch looked up at the sky and down upon the flags. Harry had foreseen that this complication was likely
