"I am going to see a specialist here to-morrow," Durrance answered.
"And, of course, there's the oculist at Wiesbaden. But it may not be
necessary to go so far. I expect that I shall be able to stay at
Guessens and come up to London when it is necessary. Thank you very
much, Mrs. Adair. It is a good plan." And he added slowly, "From my
point of view there could be no better."

Ethne watched Durrance drive away with his servant to his old rooms in
St. James's Street, and stood by the window after he had gone, in much
the same attitude and absorption as that which had characterised her
before he had come. Outside in the street the carriages were now coming
back from the park, and there was just one other change. Ethne's
apprehensions had taken a more definite shape.

She believed that suspicion was quieted in Durrance for to-day, at all
events. She had not heard his conversation with Calder in Cairo. She did
not know that he believed there was no cure which could restore him to
sight. She had no remotest notion that the possibility of a remedy might
be a mere excuse. But none the less she was uneasy. Durrance had grown
more acute. Not only his senses had been sharpened,--that, indeed, was
to be expected,--but trouble and thought had sharpened his mind as well.
It had become more penetrating. She felt that she was entering upon an
encounter of wits, and she had a fear lest she should be worsted. "Two
lives shall not be spoilt because of me," she repeated, but it was a
prayer now, rather than a resolve. For one thing she recognised quite
surely: Durrance saw ever so much more clearly now that he was blind.

CHAPTER XIV

CAPTAIN WILLOUGHBY REAPPEARS

During the months of July and August Ethne's apprehensions grew, and
once at all events they found expression on her lips.

"I am afraid," she said, one morning, as she stood in the sunlight at an
open window of Mrs. Adair's house upon a creek of the Salcombe estuary.
In the room behind her Mrs. Adair smiled quietly.

"Of what? That some accident happened to Colonel Durrance yesterday in
London?"

"No," Ethne answered slowly, "not of that. For he is at this moment
crossing the lawn towards us."

Again Mrs. Adair smiled, but she did not raise her head from the book
which she was reading, so that it might have been some passage in the
book which so amused and pleased her.

"I thought so," she said, but in so low a voice that the words barely
reached Ethne's