w. I would like to hear about it."

"Yes, I will write to Durrance."

The slip of gold was gone, the clear light of a summer evening filled
the church, a light without radiance or any colour.

"I shall not see you for a long while," said Ethne, and for the first
time her voice broke in a sob. "I shall not have a letter from you
again."

She leaned a little forward and bent her head, for the tears had
gathered in her eyes. But she rose up bravely from her seat, and
together they went out of the church side by side. She leaned towards
him as they walked so that they touched.

Feversham untied his horse and mounted it. As his foot touched the
stirrup Ethne caught her dog close to her.

"Good-bye," she said. She did not now even try to smile, she held out
her hand to him. He took it and bent down from his saddle close to her.
She kept her eyes steadily upon him though the tears brimmed in them.

"Good-bye," he said. He held her hand just for a little while, and then
releasing it, rode down the hill. He rode for a hundred yards, stopped
and looked back. Ethne had stopped, too, and with this space between
them and their faces towards one another they remained. Ethne made no
sign of recognition or farewell. She just stood and looked. Then she
turned away and went up the village street towards her house alone and
very slowly. Feversham watched her till she went in at the gate, but she
became dim and blurred to his vision before even she had reached it. He
was able to see, however, that she did not look back again.

He rode down the hill. The bad thing which he had done so long ago was
not even by his six years of labour to be destroyed. It was still to
live, its consequence was to be sorrow till the end of life for another
than himself. That she took the sorrow bravely and without complaint,
doing the straight and simple thing as her loyal nature bade her, did
not diminish Harry Feversham's remorse. On the contrary it taught him
yet more clearly that she least of all deserved unhappiness. The harm
was irreparable. Other women might have forgotten, but not she. For
Ethne was of those who neither lightly feel nor lightly forget, and if
they love cannot love with half a heart. She would be alone now, he
knew, in spite of her marriage, alone up to the very end and at the
actual moment of death.

CHAPTER XXXIII

ETHNE AGAIN PLAYS THE MUSOLINE OVERTURE

The incredible words were spoken that evening. Ethne went in