to her
farm-house and sat down in the parlour. She felt cold that summer
evening and had the fire lighted. She sat gazing into the bright coals
with that stillness of attitude which was a sure sign with her of tense
emotion. The moment so eagerly looked for had come, and it was over. She
was alone now in her remote little village, out of the world in the
hills, and more alone than she had been since Willoughby sailed on that
August morning down the Salcombe estuary. From the time of Willoughby's
coming she had looked forward night and day to the one half-hour during
which Harry Feversham would be with her. The half-hour had come and
passed. She knew now how she had counted upon its coming, how she had
lived for it. She felt lonely in a rather empty world. But it was part
of her nature that she had foreseen this sense of loneliness; she had
known that there would be a bad hour for her after she had sent Harry
Feversham away, that all her heart and soul would clamour to her to call
him back. And she forced herself, as she sat shivering by the fire, to
remember that she had always foreseen and had always looked beyond it.
To-morrow she would know again that they had not parted forever,
to-morrow she would compare the parting of to-day with the parting on
the night of the ball at Lennon House, and recognise what a small thing
this was to that. She fell to wondering what Harry Feversham would do
now that he had returned, and while she was building up for him a future
of great distinction she felt Dermod's old collie dog nuzzling at her
hand with his sure instinct that his mistress was in distress. Ethne
rose from her chair and took the dog's head between her hands and kissed
it. He was very old, she thought; he would die soon and leave her, and
then there would be years and years, perhaps, before she lay down in her
bed and knew the great moment was at hand.

There came a knock upon the door, and a servant told her that Colonel
Durrance was waiting.

"Yes," she said, and as he entered the room she went forward to meet
him. She did not shirk the part which she had allotted to herself. She
stepped out from the secret chamber of her grief as soon as she was
summoned.

She talked with her visitor as though no unusual thing had happened an
hour before, she even talked of their marriage and the rebuilding of
Lennon House. It was difficult, but she had grown used to difficulties.
Only that night Durrance made her path a little h