But at that moment Ethne was in the little enclosed garden whither she had led Captain Willoughby that morning. Here she was private; Dermod’s collie dog had followed her; she had reached the solitude and the silence which had become necessities to her. A few more words from Durrance and her prudence would have broken beneath the strain. All that pretence of affection which during these last months she had so sedulously built up about him like a wall, and which he was never to look over, would have been struck down and levelled to the ground. Durrance, indeed, had already looked over the wall—was looking over it with amazed eyes at this instant; but that Ethne did not know. The moonlight slept in silver upon the creek, the tall trees stood dreaming to the stars; the lapping of the tide against the bank was no louder than the music of a river. She sat down upon the bench and strove to gather some of the quietude of that summer night into her heart, and to learn from the growing things of nature about her something of their patience and their extraordinary perseverance.
But the occurrences of the day had overtaxed her, and she could not. Only this morning, and in this very garden, the good news had come and she had regained Harry Feversham. For in that way she thought of Willoughby’s message. This morning she had regained him, and this evening the bad news had come and she had lost him—and most likely right to the very end of mortal life. Harry Feversham meant to pay for his fault to the uttermost scruple, and Ethne cried out against his thoroughness, which he had learned from no other than herself. “Surely,” she thought, “he might have been content. In redeeming his honour in the eyes of one of the three he has done enough—he has redeemed it in the eyes of all.”
But he had gone south to join Colonel Trench in Omdurman. Of that squalid and shadowless town, of its hideous barbarities, of the horrors of its prison-house, Ethne knew nothing at all. But Captain Willoughby had hinted enough to fill her imagination with terrors. He had offered to explain to her what captivity in Omdurman implied, and she wrung her hands, as she remembered that she had refused to listen. What cruelties might not be practised? Even now, at that very hour perhaps, on this night of summer—. But she dared not let her thoughts wander that way. …
The lapping of the tide against the banks was like the music of a river. It brought to Ethne’s mind one particular river which had sung and babbled in her ears when, five years ago, she had watched out another summer night till dawn. Never had she so hungered for her own country and the companionship of its brown hills and streams. No, not even this afternoon, when she had sat at her window and watched the lights change upon the creek. Donegal had a sanctity for her, it seemed when she dwelled in it to set her, in a way, apart from and above earthly taints; and as her heart went out in a great longing towards it now, a sudden fierce loathing for the concealments, the shifts and maneuvers which she had practised, and still must practise, sprang up within her. A great weariness came upon her, too. But she did not change from her fixed resolve. Two lives were not to be spoilt because she lived in the world. Tomorrow she would gather up her strength and begin again. For Durrance must never know that there was another whom she placed before him in her thoughts. Meanwhile, however, Durrance within the drawing-room brought his confession to an end.
“So you see,” he said, “I could not speak of Harry Feversham until tonight; for I was afraid that what I had to tell you would hurt you very much. I was afraid that you still remembered him, in spite of those five years. I knew, of course, that you were my friend. But I doubted whether in your heart you were not more than that to him. Tonight, however, I could tell you without fear.”
Now at all events he expected an answer. Mrs. Adair, still standing by the window, heard him move in the shadows.
“Ethne!” he said, with some surprise in his voice. And since again no answer came, he rose, and walked towards the chair in which Ethne had sat. Mrs. Adair could see him now. His hands felt for and grasped the back of the chair. He bent over it, as though he thought Ethne was leaning forward with her hands upon her knees.
“Ethne!” he said again, and there was in this iteration of her name more trouble and doubt than surprise. It seemed to Mrs. Adair that he dreaded to find her silently weeping. He was beginning to speculate whether, after all, he had been right in his inference from Ethne’s recapture of her youth tonight—whether the shadow of Feversham did not, after all, fall between them. He leaned farther forward, feeling with his hand, and suddenly a string of Ethne’s violin twanged loud. She had left it lying on the chair, and his fingers had touched it.
Durrance drew himself up straight and stood quite motionless and silent, like a man who had suffered a shock and is bewildered. He passed his hand across his forehead once or twice, and then, without calling upon Ethne again, he advanced to the open window.
Mrs. Adair did not move,
