e in Pall Mall, and Harry
Feversham had touched him on the arm and had spoken out his despair,
Lieutenant Sutch had been oppressed with a sense of guilt. Harry was
Muriel Feversham's boy, and Sutch just for that reason should have
watched him and mothered him in his boyhood since his mother was dead,
and fathered him in his youth since his father did not understand. But
he had failed. He had failed in a sacred trust, and he had imagined
Muriel Feversham's eyes looking at him with reproach from the barrier of
the skies. He had heard her voice in his dreams saying to him gently,
ever so gently: "Since I was dead, since I was taken away to where I
could only see and not help, surely you might have helped. Just for my
sake you might have helped,--you whose work in the world was at an end."
And the long tale of his inactive years had stood up to accuse him. Now,
however, the guilt was lifted from his shoulders, and by Harry
Feversham's own act. The news was not altogether unexpected, but the
lightness of spirit which he felt showed him how much he had counted
upon its coming.

"I knew," he exclaimed, "I knew he wouldn't fail. Oh, I am glad you came
to-day, Colonel Durrance. It was partly my fault, you see, that Harry
Feversham ever incurred that charge of cowardice. I could have
spoken--there was an opportunity on one of the Crimean nights at Broad
Place, and a word might have been of value--and I held my tongue. I have
never ceased to blame myself. I am grateful for your news. You have the
particulars? Captain Willoughby was in peril, and Harry came to his
aid?"

"No, it was not that exactly."

"Tell me! Tell me!"

He feared to miss a word. Durrance related the story of the Gordon
letters, and their recovery by Feversham. It was all too short for
Lieutenant Sutch.

"Oh, but I am glad you came," he cried.

"You understand at all events," said Durrance, "that I have not come to
repeat to you the questions I asked in the courtyard of my club. I am
able, on the contrary, to give you information."

Sutch spoke to the pony and drove on. He had said nothing which could
reveal to Durrance his fear that to renew those questions was the
object of his visit; and he was a little perplexed at the accuracy of
Durrance's conjecture. But the great news to which he had listened
hindered him from giving thought to that perplexity.

"So Miss Eustace told you the story," he said, "and showed you the
feather?"

"No, indeed," replie