“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. 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 failed to find them there.
“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.
XX
East and West
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 steeplechase at Colchester; he could remember the day, with its clouds and grey sky, and the dull look of the ploughed fields between the hedges. That pewter, which stood upon his writing table, and which had formed a convenient holder for his pens, he had acquired very long ago in his college “fours,” when he was a freshman at Oxford. The hoof of a favourite horse mounted in silver made an ornament upon the mantelpiece. His trophies made the room a gigantic diary. He fingered his records of good days
