e futile in itself, and
might, moreover, in betraying his own fear that the hurt was
irreparable, only discourage his companion. He turned to the pile of
letters and looked them through.

"There are two letters here, Durrance," he said gently, "which you might
perhaps care to hear. They are written in a woman's hand, and there is
an Irish postmark. Shall I open them?"

"No," exclaimed Durrance, suddenly, and his hand dropped quickly upon
Calder's arm. "By no means."

Calder, however, did not put down the letters. He was anxious, for
private reasons of his own, to learn something more of Ethne Eustace
than the outside of her letters could reveal. A few rare references made
in unusual moments of confidence by Durrance had only informed Calder of
her name, and assured him that his friend would be very glad to change
it if he could. He looked at Durrance--a man so trained to vigour and
activity that his very sunburn seemed an essential quality rather than
an accident of the country in which he lived; a man, too, who came to
the wild, uncitied places of the world with the joy of one who comes
into an inheritance; a man to whom these desolate tracts were home, and
the fireside and the hedged fields and made roads merely the other
places; and he understood the magnitude of the calamity which had
befallen him. Therefore he was most anxious to know more of this girl
who wrote to Durrance from Donegal, and to gather from her letters, as
from a mirror in which her image was reflected, some speculation as to
her character. For if she failed, what had this friend of his any longer
left?

"You would like to hear them, I expect," he insisted. "You have been
away eight weeks." And he was interrupted by a harsh laugh.

"Do you know what I was thinking when I stopped you?" said Durrance.
"Why, that I would read the letters after you had gone. It takes time to
get used to being blind after your eyes have served you pretty well all
your life." And his voice shook ever so little. "You will have to help
me to answer them, Calder. So read them. Please read them."

Calder tore open the envelopes and read the letters through and was
satisfied. They gave a record of the simple doings of her mountain
village in Donegal, and in the simplest terms. But the girl's nature
shone out in the telling. Her love of the country-side and of the people
who dwelt there was manifest. She could see the humour and the tragedy
of the small village troubles.