smoke
from the chimneys of Colonel Durrance's house. She stood for a little
while hesitating upon the terrace. On the left the lawn ran down to a
line of tall beeches and oaks which fringed the creek. But a broad space
had been cleared to make a gap upon the bank, so that Ethne could see
the sunlight on the water and the wooded slope on the farther side, and
a sailing-boat some way down the creek tacking slowly against the light
wind. Ethne looked about her, as though she was summoning her resources,
and even composing her sentences ready for delivery to the man who was
walking steadily towards her across the lawn. If there was hesitation
upon her part, there was none at all, she noticed, on the part of the
blind man. It seemed that Durrance's eyes took in the path which his
feet trod, and with the stick which he carried in his hand he switched
at the blades of grass like one that carries it from habit rather than
for any use. Ethne descended the steps and advanced to meet him. She
walked slowly, as if to a difficult encounter.

But there was another who only waited an opportunity to engage in it
with eagerness. For as Ethne descended the steps Mrs. Adair suddenly
dropped the book which she had pretended to resume and ran towards the
window. Hidden by the drapery of the curtain she looked out and watched.
The smile was still upon her lips, but a fierce light had brightened in
her eyes, and her face had the drawn look of hunger.

"Something which at all costs she must conceal," she said to herself,
and she said it in a voice of exultation. There was contempt too in her
tone, contempt for Ethne Eustace, the woman of the open air who was
afraid, who shrank from marriage with a blind man, and dreaded the
restraint upon her freedom. It was that shrinking which Ethne had to
conceal--Mrs. Adair had no doubt of it. "For my part, I am glad," she
said, and she was--fiercely glad that blindness had disabled Durrance.
For if her opportunity ever came, as it seemed to her now more and more
likely to come, blindness reserved him to her, as no man was ever
reserved to any woman. So jealous was she of his every word and look
that his dependence upon her would be the extreme of pleasure. She
watched Ethne and Durrance meet on the lawn at the foot of the terrace
steps. She saw them turn and walk side by side across the grass towards
the creek. She noticed that Ethne seemed to plead, and in her heart she
longed to overhear.

And Ethne