Ethne sat down in her chair again. She was stunned by Durrance"s unexpected disclosure. She had so carefully guarded her secret, that to realise that for a year it had been no secret came as a shock to her.
But, even in the midst of her confusion, she understood that she must have time to gather up her faculties again under command. So she spoke of the unimportant thing to gain the time.
"You were in the church, then? Or you heard us upon the steps? Or you met--him as he rode away?"
"Not one of the conjectures is right," said Durrance, with a smile.
Ethne had hit upon the right subject to delay the statement of the decision to which she knew very well that he had come. Durrance had his vanities like others; and in particular one vanity which had sprung up within him since he had become blind. He prided himself upon the quickness of his perception. It was a delight to him to make discoveries which no one expected a man who had lost his sight to make, and to announce them unexpectedly. It was an additional pleasure to relate to his puzzled audience the steps by which he had reached his discovery.
"Not one of your conjectures is right, Ethne," he said, and he practically asked her to question him.
"Then how did you find out?" she asked.
"I knew from Trench that Harry Feversham would come some day, and soon.
I pa.s.sed the church this afternoon. Your collie dog barked at me. So I knew you were inside. But a saddled horse was tied up beside the gate.
So some one else was with you, and not any one from the village. Then I got you to play, and that told me who it was who rode the horse."
"Yes," said Ethne, vaguely. She had barely listened to his words. "Yes, I see." Then in a definite voice, which showed that she had regained all her self-control, she said:--
"You went away to Wiesbaden for a year. You went away just after Captain Willoughby came. Was that the reason why you went away?"
"I went because neither you nor I could have kept up the game of pretences we were playing. You were pretending that you had no thought for Harry Feversham, that you hardly cared whether he was alive or dead.
I was pretending not to have found out that beyond everything in the world you cared for him. Some day or other we should have failed, each one in turn. I dared not fail, nor dared you. I could not let you, who had said "Two lives must not be spoilt because of me," live through a year thinking that two lives had been spoilt. You on your side dared not let me, who had said "Marriage between a blind man and a woman is only possible when there is more than friendship on both sides," know that upon one side there was only friendship, and we were so near to failing.
So I went away."
"You did not fail," said Ethne, quietly; "it was only I who failed."
She blamed herself most bitterly. She had set herself, as the one thing worth doing, and inc.u.mbent on her to do, to guard this man from knowledge which would set the crown on his calamities, and she had failed. He had set himself to protect her from the comprehension that she had failed, and he had succeeded. It was not any mere sense of humiliation, due to the fact that the man whom she had thought to hoodwink had hoodwinked her, which troubled her. But she felt that she ought to have succeeded, since by failure she had robbed him of his last chance of happiness. There lay the sting for her.
"But it was not your fault," he said. "Once or twice, as I said, you were off your guard, but the convincing facts were not revealed to me in that way. When you played the Musoline Overture before, on the night of the day when Willoughby brought you such good news, I took to myself that happiness of yours which inspired your playing. You must not blame yourself. On the contrary, you should be glad that I have found out."
"Glad!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, for my sake, glad." And as she looked at him in wonderment he went on: "Two lives should not be spoilt because of you. Had you had your way, had I not found out, not two but three lives would have been spoilt because of you--because of your loyalty."
"Three?"
"Yours. Yes--yes, yours, Feversham"s, and mine. It was hard enough to keep the pretence during the few weeks we were in Devonshire. Own to it, Ethne! When I went to London to see my oculist it was a relief; it gave you a pause, a rest wherein to drop pretence and be yourself. It could not have lasted long even in Devonshire. But what when we came to live under the same roof, and there were no visits to the oculist, when we saw each other every hour of every day? Sooner or later the truth must have come to me. It might have come gradually, a suspicion added to a suspicion and another to that until no doubt was left. Or it might have flashed out in one terrible moment. But it would have been made clear.
And then, Ethne? What then? You aimed at a compensation; you wanted to make up to me for the loss of what I love--my career, the army, the special service in the strange quarters of the world. A fine compensation to sit in front of you knowing you had married a cripple out of pity, and that in so doing you had crippled yourself and foregone the happiness which is yours by right. Whereas now--"
"Whereas now?" she repeated.
"I remain your friend, which I would rather be than your unloved husband," he said very gently.
Ethne made no rejoinder. The decision had been taken out of her hands.
"You sent Harry away this afternoon," said Durrance. "You said good-bye to him twice."
At the "twice" Ethne raised her head, but before she could speak Durrance explained:--
"Once in the church, again upon your violin," and he took up the instrument from the chair on which she had laid it. "It has been a very good friend, your violin," he said. "A good friend to me, to us all. You will understand that, Ethne, very soon. I stood at the window while you played it. I had never heard anything in my life half so sad as your farewell to Harry Feversham, and yet it was n.o.bly sad. It was true music, it did not complain." He laid the violin down upon the chair again.
"I am going to send a messenger to Rathmullen. Harry cannot cross Lough Sw.i.l.l.y to-night. The messenger will bring him back to-morrow."
It had been a day of many emotions and surprises for Ethne. As Durrance bent down towards her, he became aware that she was crying silently. For once tears had their way with her. He took his cap and walked noiselessly to the door of the room. As he opened it, Ethne got up.
"Don"t go for a moment," she said, and she left the fireplace and came to the centre of the room.
"The oculist at Wiesbaden?" she asked. "He gave you a hope?"
Durrance stood meditating whether he should lie or speak the truth.
"No," he said at length. "There is no hope. But I am not so helpless as at one time I was afraid that I should be. I can get about, can"t I?
Perhaps one of these days I shall go on a journey, one of the long journeys amongst the strange people in the East."
He went from the house upon his errand. He had learned his lesson a long time since, and the violin had taught it him. It had spoken again that afternoon, and though with a different voice, had offered to him the same message. The true music cannot complain.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
THE END
In the early summer of next year two old men sat reading their newspapers after breakfast upon the terrace of Broad Place. The elder of the two turned over a sheet.
"I see Osman Digna"s back at Suakin," said he. "There"s likely to be some fighting."
"Oh," said the other, "he will not do much harm." And he laid down his paper. The quiet English country-side vanished from before his eyes. He saw only the white city by the Red Sea shimmering in the heat, the brown plains about it with their tangle of halfa gra.s.s, and in the distance the hills towards Khor Gwob.
"A stuffy place Suakin, eh, Sutch?" said General Feversham.
"Appallingly stuffy. I heard of an officer who went down on parade at six o"clock of the morning there, sunstruck in the temples right through a regulation helmet. Yes, a town of dank heat! But I was glad to be there--very glad," he said with some feeling.
"Yes," said Feversham, briskly; "ibex, eh?"
"No," replied Sutch. "All the ibex had been shot off by the English garrison for miles round."
"No? Something to do, then. That"s it?"
"Yes, that"s it, Feversham. Something to do."
And both men busied themselves again over their papers. But in a little while a footman brought to each a small pile of letters. General Feversham ran over his envelopes with a quick eye, selected one letter, and gave a grunt of satisfaction. He took a pair of spectacles from a case and placed them upon his nose.
"From Ramelton?" asked Sutch, dropping his newspaper on to the terrace.
"From Ramelton," answered Feversham. "I"ll light a cigar first."
He laid the letter down on the garden table which stood between his companion and himself, drew a cigar-case from his pocket, and in spite of the impatience of Lieutenant Sutch, proceeded to cut and light it with the utmost deliberation. The old man had become an epicure in this respect. A letter from Ramelton was a luxury to be enjoyed with all the accessories of comfort which could be obtained. He made himself comfortable in his chair, stretched out his legs, and smoked enough of his cigar to a.s.sure himself that it was drawing well. Then he took up his letter again and opened it.