nctions; so I
cannot bring myself to believe that we three men were at all to blame,
and if we were not, you of all people can have no reason for
self-reproach."

Ethne did not consider what he precisely meant by the last reference to
herself. For as he leaned complacently back in his seat, anger against
him flamed suddenly hot in her. Occupied by his story, she had ceased to
take stock of the story-teller. Now that he had ended, she looked him
over from head to foot. An obstinate stupidity was the mark of the man
to her eye. How dare he sit in judgment upon the meanest of his fellows,
let alone Harry Feversham? she asked, and in the same moment recollected
that she herself had endorsed his judgment. Shame tingled through all
her blood; she sat with her lips set, keeping Willoughby under watch
from the corners of her eyes, and waiting to pounce savagely the moment
he opened his lips. There had been noticeable throughout his narrative a
manner of condescension towards Feversham. "Let him use it again!"
thought Ethne. But Captain Willoughby said nothing at all, and Ethne
herself broke the silence. "Who of you three first thought of sending
the feathers?" she asked aggressively. "Not you?"

"No; I think it was Trench," he replied.

"Ah, Trench!" Ethne exclaimed. She struck one clenched hand, the hand
which held the feather, viciously into the palm of the other. "I will
remember that name."

"But I share his responsibility," Willoughby assured her. "I do not
shrink from it at all. I regret very much that we caused you pain and
annoyance, but I do not acknowledge to any mistake in this matter. I
take my feather back now, and I annul my accusation. But that is your
doing."

"Mine?" asked Ethne. "What do you mean?"

Captain Willoughby turned with surprise to his companion.

"A man may live in the Soudan and even yet not be wholly ignorant of
women and their great quality of forgiveness. You gave the feathers back
to Feversham in order that he might redeem his honour. That is evident."

Ethne sprang to her feet before Captain Willoughby had come to the end
of his sentence, and stood a little in front of him, with her face
averted, and in an attitude remarkably still. Willoughby in his
ignorance, like many another stupid man before him, had struck with a
shrewdness and a vigour which he could never have compassed by the use
of his wits. He had pointed out abruptly and suddenly to Ethne a way
which she might have taken