Mrs. Adair, on her side, asked for no explanations. She was naturally, behind her pale and placid¹ countenance², a woman of a tortuous³ and intriguing⁴ mind. She preferred to look through a keyhole even when she could walk straight in at the door; and knowledge which could be gained by a little maneuvering⁵ was always more desirable and precious in her eyes than any information which a simple question would elicit⁶. She avoided, indeed, the direct question on a perverted⁷ sort of principle, and she thought a day very well spent if at the close of it she had outwitted a companion into telling her spontaneously some trivial and unimportant piece of news which a straightforward⁸ request would have at once secured for her at breakfast-time.  
Therefore, though she was mystified by the little white feather upon which Ethne seemed to set so much store, and wondered at the good news of Harry⁹ Feversham which Captain Willoughby had brought, and vainly puzzled her brains in conjecture¹⁰ as to what in the world could have happened on that night at Ramelton so many years ago, she betrayed nothing whatever of her perplexity all through lunch; on the contrary, she plied¹¹ her guest with conversation upon indifferent topics. Mrs. Adair could be good company when she chose, and she chose now. But it was not to any purpose.
 
"I don't believe that you hear a single word I am saying!" she exclaimed.
 
Ethne laughed and pleaded guilty. She betook herself to her room as soon as lunch was finished, and allowed herself an afternoon of solitude¹². Sitting at her window, she repeated slowly the story which Willoughby had told to her that morning, and her heart thrilled to it as to music divinely played. The regret that he had not come home and told it a year ago, when she was free, was a small thing in comparison with the story itself. It could not outweigh¹³ the great gladness which that brought to her—it had, indeed, completely vanished from her thoughts. Her pride, which had never recovered from the blow which Harry Feversham had dealt to her in the hall at Lennon House, was now quite restored, and by the man who had dealt the blow. She was aglow¹⁴ with it, and most grateful to Harry Feversham for that he had, at so much peril¹⁵ to himself, restored it. She was conscious of a new exhilaration in the sunlight, of a quicker pulsation¹⁶ in her blood. Her youth was given back to her upon that August afternoon.
 
Ethne unlocked a drawer in her dressing-case, and took from it the portrait which alone of all Harry Feversham's presents she had kept. She rejoiced that she had kept it. It was the portrait of some one who was dead to her—that she knew very well, for there was no thought of disloyalty toward Durrance in her breast—but the some one was a friend. She looked at it with a great happiness and contentment, because Harry Feversham had needed no expression of faith from her to inspire him, and no encouragement from her to keep him through the years on the level of his high inspiration. When she put it back again, she laid the white feather in the drawer with it and locked the two things up together.
 
She came back to her window. Out upon the lawn a light breeze made the shadows from the high trees dance, the sunlight mellowed¹⁷ and reddened. But Ethne was of her county, as Harry Feversham had long ago discovered, and her heart yearned¹⁸ for it at this moment. It was the month of August. The first of the heather would be out upon the hillsides of Donegal, and she wished that the good news had been brought to her there. The regret that it had not was her crumpled¹⁹ rose-leaf. Here she was in a strange land; there the brown mountains, with their outcroppings of granite²⁰ and the voices of the streams, would have shared, she almost thought, in her new happiness. Great sorrows or great joys had this in common for Ethne Eustace, they both drew her homewards, since there endurance was more easy and gladness more complete.
 
She had, however, one living tie with Donegal at her side, for Dermod's old collie dog had become her inseparable companion. To him she made her confidence, and if at times her voice broke in tears, why, the dog would not tell. She came to understand much which Willoughby had omitted, and which Feversham had never told. Those three years of concealment²¹ in the small and crowded city of Suakin, for instance, with the troops marching out to battle, and returning dust-strewn and bleeding and laurelled with victory. Harry Feversham had to slink away at their approach, lest some old friend of his—Durrance, perhaps, or Willoughby, or Trench—should notice him and penetrate²² his disguise. The panic which had beset²³ him when first he saw the dark brown walls of Berber, the night in the ruined acres, the stumbling search for the well amongst the shifting sandhills of Obak,—Ethne had vivid pictures of these incidents, and as she thought of each she asked herself: "Where was I then? What was I doing?"
 
She sat in a golden mist until the lights began to change upon the still water of the creek²⁴, and the rooks wheeled noisily out from the tree-tops to sort themselves for the night, and warned her of evening.
 
She brought to the dinner-table that night a buoyancy of spirit which surprised her companions. Mrs. Adair had to admit that seldom had her eyes shone so starrily²⁵, or the colour so freshly graced her cheeks. She was more than ever certain that Captain Willoughby had brought stirring news; she was more than ever tortured by her vain efforts to guess its nature. But Mrs. Adair, in spite of her perplexities, took her share in the talk, and that dinner passed with a freedom from emb............