ng
him for help; but the irony of this queer momentary reversal of their
position occurred to neither of them. Ethne was too tried by the strain
of those last hours, and Feversham had learned from that one failure of
her endurance, from the drawn aspect of her face and the depths of pain
in her eyes, how deeply he had wounded her. He no longer said, "I have
lost her," he no longer thought of his loss at all. He heard her words,
"I wonder whether it is right that one should suffer so much pain." He
felt that they would go ringing down the world with him, persistent in
his ears, spoken upon the very accent of her voice. He was sure that he
would hear them at the end above the voices of any who should stand
about him when he died, and hear in them his condemnation. For it was
not right.

The ball finished shortly afterwards. The last carriage drove away, and
those who were staying in the house sought the smoking-room or went
upstairs to bed according to their sex. Feversham, however, lingered in
the hall with Ethne. She understood why.

"There is no need," she said, standing with her back to him as she
lighted a candle, "I have told my father. I told him everything."

Feversham bowed his head in acquiescence.

"Still, I must wait and see him," he said.

Ethne did not object, but she turned and looked at him quickly with her
brows drawn in a frown of perplexity. To wait for her father under such
circumstances seemed to argue a certain courage. Indeed, she herself
felt some apprehension as she heard the door of the study open and
Dermod's footsteps on the floor. Dermod walked straight up to Harry
Feversham, looking for once in a way what he was, a very old man, and
stood there staring into Feversham's face with a muddled and bewildered
expression. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. In
the end he turned to the table and lit his candle and Harry Feversham's.
Then he turned back toward Feversham, and rather quickly, so that Ethne
took a step forward as if to get between them; but he did nothing more
than stare at Feversham again and for a long time. Finally, he took up
his candle.

"Well--" he said, and stopped. He snuffed the wick with the scissors and
began again. "Well--" he said, and stopped again. Apparently his candle
had not helped him to any suitable expressions. He stared into the flame
now instead of into Feversham's face, and for an equal length of time.
He could think of nothing whatever t