had a friendly sheltering look, and Durrance
came almost to believe that they put on their different draperies of
emerald green, and purple, and russet brown consciously to delight the
eyes of the girl they sheltered. The house faced the long slope of
country to the inlet of the Lough. From the windows the eye reached down
over the sparse thickets, the few tilled fields, the whitewashed
cottages, to the tall woods upon the bank, and caught a glimpse of
bright water and the gulls poising and dipping above it. Durrance rode
up the track upon an afternoon and knew the house at once. For as he
approached, the music of a violin floated towards him from the windows
like a welcome. His hand was checked upon the reins, and a particular
strong hope, about which he had allowed his fancies to play, rose up
within him and suspended his breath.

He tied up his horse and entered in at the gate. A formless barrack
without, the house within was a place of comfort. The room into which he
was shown, with its brasses and its gleaming oak and its wide prospect,
was bright as the afternoon itself. Durrance imagined it, too, with the
blinds drawn upon a winter's night, and the fire red on the hearth, and
the wind skirling about the hills and rapping on the panes.

Ethne greeted him without the least mark of surprise.

"I thought that you would come," she said, and a smile shone upon her
face.

Durrance laughed suddenly as they shook hands, and Ethne wondered why.
She followed the direction of his eyes towards the violin which lay upon
a table at her side. It was pale in colour; there was a mark, too, close
to the bridge, where a morsel of worm-eaten wood had been replaced.

"It is yours," she said. "You were in Egypt. I could not well send it
back to you there."

"I have hoped lately, since I knew," returned Durrance, "that,
nevertheless, you would accept it."

"You see I have," said Ethne, and looking straight into his eyes she
added: "I accepted it some while ago. There was a time when I needed to
be assured that I had sure friends. And a thing tangible helped. I was
very glad to have it."

Durrance took the instrument from the table, handling it delicately,
like a sacred vessel.

"You have played upon it? The Musoline overture, perhaps," said he.

"Do you remember that?" she returned, with a laugh. "Yes, I have played
upon it, but only recently. For a long time I put my violin away. It
talked to me too intimately of many thin