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Updated: June 17, 2025
And again Durrance read into her words the interpretation he desired; and again she meant just what she said, and not a word more. She stood where he left her, a tall, strong-limbed figure of womanhood, until he was gone out of sight. Then she climbed down to the house, and going into her room took one of her violins from its case.
Neither of the two men spoke for a few moments, and then Calder put his arm round Durrance's shoulder, and asked in a voice gentle as a woman's: "How did it happen?" Durrance buried his face in his hands. The great control which he had exercised till now he was no longer able to sustain. He did not answer, nor did he utter any sound, but he sat shivering from head to foot. "How did it happen?"
"Life would not be easy, I suppose, in the prison of Omdurman," she said, and again she forced herself to indifference. "Easy!" exclaimed Durrance; "no, it would not be easy.
We shall be none the less good friends because three thousand miles hinder us from shaking hands." They shook hands as she spoke. "I shall be in England again in a year's time," said Durrance. "May I come back?" Ethne's eyes and her smile consented. "I should be sorry to lose you altogether," she said, "although even if I did not see you, I should know that I had not lost your friendship."
"No," she repeated, as she rose to her feet. Durrance rose with her. He was still not so much disheartened as conscious of a blunder. He had put his case badly; he should never have given her the opportunity to think that marriage would be an interruption of his career. "We will say good-bye here," she said, "in the open.
I do not think there is anything half so precious to her in all the world." "A token?" "A little white feather," said Mrs. Adair, "all soiled and speckled with dust. Can you read the riddle of that feather?" "Not yet," Durrance replied. He walked once or twice along the terrace and back, lost in thought. Then he went into the house and fetched his cap from the hall. He came back to Mrs. Adair.
"You have noticed the change in her to-night?" she said. "Yes. Have I not?" answered Durrance. "One has waited for it, hoped for it, despaired of it." "Are you so glad of the change?" Durrance threw back his head. "Do you wonder that I am glad? Kind, friendly, unselfish these things she has always been. But there is more than friendliness evident to-night, and for the first time it's evident."
"He tried Arabic," Durrance resumed, "pleading that he and his companions were just poor peaceable people, that if I had given him too much money, I should take it back, and all the while he dragged away from me. But I held him fast. I said, 'Harry Feversham, that won't do, and upon that he gave in and spoke in English, whispering it. 'Let me go, Jack, let me go. There was the crowd about us.
"I thought that you would come," she said, and a smile shone upon her face. Durrance laughed suddenly as they shook hands, and Ethne wondered why. She followed the direction of his eyes towards the violin which lay upon a table at her side. It was pale in colour; there was a mark, too, close to the bridge, where a morsel of worm-eaten wood had been replaced. "It is yours," she said.
"Of course, I can't turn you out of the house," he said; and he added severely, "But I warn you that you are taking an improper advantage of your position as my guest." "Yes, there is no doubt of that," Durrance answered calmly; and he told his story the recovery of the Gordon letters from Berber, his own meeting with Harry Feversham at Wadi Halfa, and Harry's imprisonment at Omdurman.
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