grown quick. There could be only one reason for her sudden
unexplained and secret flight. He had told her that Feversham had
wandered south from Wadi Halfa into the savage country; he had spoken
out his fears as to Feversham's fate without reserve, thinking that she
had forgotten him, and indeed rather inclined to blame her for the
callous indifference with which she received the news. The callousness
was a mere mask, and she had fled because she no longer had the strength
to hold it up before her face. His first suspicions had been right.
Feversham still stood between Ethne and himself and held them at arm's
length.

"She ran as though she was in great trouble and hardly knew what she was
doing," Mrs. Adair continued. "Did you cause that trouble?"

"Yes."

"I thought so, from what I heard you say."

Mrs. Adair wanted to hurt, and in spite of Durrance's impenetrable face,
she felt that she had succeeded. It was a small sort of compensation for
the weeks of mortification which she had endured. There is something
which might be said for Mrs. Adair; extenuations might be pleaded, even
if no defence was made. For she like Ethne was overtaxed that night.
That calm pale face of hers hid the quick passions of the South, and she
had been racked by them to the limits of endurance. There had been
something grotesque, something rather horrible, in that outbreak and
confession by Durrance, after Ethne had fled from the room. He was
speaking out his heart to an empty chair. She herself had stood without
the window with a bitter longing that he had spoken so to her and a
bitter knowledge that he never would. She was sunk deep in humiliation.
The irony of the position tortured her; it was like a jest of grim
selfish gods played off upon ineffectual mortals to their hurt. And at
the bottom of all the thoughts rankled that memory of the extinguished
lamp, and the low, hushed voices speaking one to the other in darkness.
Therefore she spoke to give pain and was glad that she gave it, even
though it was to the man whom she coveted.

"There's one thing which I don't understand," said Durrance. "I mean the
change which we both noticed in Ethne to-night. I mistook the cause of
it, that's evident. I was a fool. But there must have been a cause. The
gift of laughter had been restored to her. Her gravity, her air of
calculation, had vanished. She became just what she was five years ago."

"Exactly," Mrs. Adair answered. "Just what she wa