"No," she said, "two lives shall not be spoilt because of me," and she turned towards Mrs. Adair.
"Are you quite sure, Ethne," said Mrs. Adair, "that the two lives will not be more surely spoilt by this way of yours-the way of marriage? Don't you think that you will come to feel Colonel Durrance, in spite of your will, something of a hindrance and a drag? Isn't it possible that he may come to feel that too? I wonder. I very much wonder."
"No," said Ethne, decisively. "I shall not feel it, and he must not."
The two lives, according to Mrs. Adair, were not the lives of Durrance and Harry Feversham, but of Durrance and Ethne herself. There she was wrong; but Ethne did not dispute the point, she was indeed rather glad that her friend was wrong, and she allowed her to continue in her wrong belief.
Ethne resumed her watch at the window, foreseeing her life, planning it out so that never might she be caught off her guard. The task would be difficult, no doubt, and it was no wonder that in these minutes while she waited fear grew upon her lest she should fail. But the end was well worth the effort, and she set her eyes upon that. Durrance had lost everything which made life to him worth living the moment he went blind-everything, except one thing. "What should I do if I were crippled?" he had said to Harry Feversham on the morning when for the last time they had ridden together in the Row. "A clever man might put up with it. But what should I do if I had to sit in a chair all my days?" Ethne had not heard the words, but she understood the man well enough without them. He was by birth the inheritor of the other places, and he had lost his heritage. The things which delighted him, the long journeys, the faces of strange countries, the camp-fire, a mere spark of red light amidst black and empty silence, the hours of sleep in the open under bright stars, the cool night wind of the desert, and the work of government-all these things he had lost. Only one thing remained to him-herself, and only, as she knew very well, herself so long as he could believe she wanted him. And while she was still occupied with her resolve, the cab for which she waited stopped unnoticed at the door. It was not until Durrance's servant had actually rung the bell that her attention was again attracted to the street.
"He has come!" she said with a start.
Durrance, it was true, was not particularly acute; he had never been inquisitive; he took his friends as he found them; he put them under no microscope. It would have been easy at any time, Ethne reflected, to quiet his suspicions, should he have ever come to entertain any. But now it would be easier than ever. There was no reason for apprehension. Thus she argued, but in spite of the argument she rather nerved herself to an encounter than went forward to welcome her betrothed.
Mrs. Adair slipped out of the room, so that Ethne was alone when Durrance entered at the door. She did not move immediately; she retained her attitude and position, expecting that the change in him would for the first moment shock her. But she was surprised; for the particular changes which she had expected were noticeable only through their absence. His face was worn, no doubt, his hair had gone grey, but there was no air of helplessness or uncertainty, and it was that which for his own sake she most dreaded. He walked forward into the room as though his eyes saw; his memory seemed to tell him exactly where each piece of the furniture stood. The most that he did was once or twice to put out a hand where he expected a chair.
Ethne drew silently back into the window rather at a loss with what words to greet him, and immediately he smiled and came straight towards her.
"Ethne," he said.
"It isn't true, then," she exclaimed. "You have recovered." The words were forced from her by the readiness of his movement.
"It is quite true, and I have not recovered," he answered. "But you moved at the window and so I knew that you were there."
"How did you know? I made no noise."
"No, but the window's open. The noise in the street became suddenly louder, so I knew that some one in front of the window had moved aside. I guessed that it was you."
Their words were thus not perhaps the most customary greeting between a couple meeting on the first occasion after they have become engaged, but they served to hinder embarrassment. Ethne shrank from any perfunctory expression of regret, knowing that there was no need for it, and Durrance had no wish to hear it. For there were many things which these two understood each other well enough to take as said. They did no more than shake hands when they had spoken, and Ethne moved back into the room.
"I will give you some tea," she said, "then we can talk."
"Yes, we must have a talk, mustn't we?" Durrance answered seriously. He threw off his serious air, however, and chatted with good humour about the details of his journey home. He even found a subject of amusement in his sense of helplessness during the first days of his blindness; and Ethne's apprehensions rapidly diminished. They had indeed almost vanished from her mind when something in his attitude suddenly brought them back.
"I wrote to you from Wadi Halfa," he said. "I don't know whether you could read the letter."
"Quite well," said Ethne.
"I got a friend of mine to hold the paper and tell me when I was writing on it or merely on the blotting-pad," he continued with a laugh. "Calder-of the Sappers-but you don't know him."
He shot the name out rather quickly, and it came upon Ethne with a shock that he had set a trap to catch her. The curious stillness of his face seemed to tell her that he was listening with an extreme intentness for some start, perhaps even a checked exclamation, which would betray that she knew something of Calder of the Sappers. Did he suspect, she asked herself? Did he know of the telegram? Did he guess that her letter was sent out of pity? She looked into Durrance's face, and it told her nothing except that it was very alert. In the old days, a year ago, the expression of his eyes would have answered her quite certainly, however close he held his tongue.
"I could read the letter without difficulty," she answered gently. "It was the letter you would have written. But I had written to you before, and of course your bad news could make no difference. I take back no word of what I wrote."
Durrance sat with his hands upon his knees, leaning forward a little. Again Ethne was at a loss. She could not tell from his manner or his face whether he accepted or questioned her answer; and again she realised that a year ago while he had his sight she would have been in no doubt.
"Yes, I know you. You would take nothing back," he said at length. "But there is my point of view."
Ethne looked at him with apprehension.
"Yes?" she replied, and she strove to speak with unconcern. "Will you tell me it?"
Durrance assented, and began in the deliberate voice of a man who has thought out his subject, knows it by heart, and has decided, moreover, the order of words by which it will be most lucidly developed.
"I know what blindness means to all men-a growing, narrowing egotism unless one is perpetually on one's guard. And will one be perpetually on one's guard? Blindness means that to all men," he repeated emphatically. "But it must mean more to me, who am deprived of every occupation. If I were a writer, I could still dictate. If I were a business man, I could conduct my business. But I am a soldier, and not a clever soldier. Jealousy, a continual and irritable curiosity-there is no Paul Pry like your blind man-a querulous claim upon your attention-these are my special dangers." And Ethne laughed gently in contradiction of his argument.
"Well, perhaps one may hold them off," he acknowledged, "but they are to be considered. I have considered them. I am not speaking to you without thought. I have pondered and puzzled over the whole matter night after night since I got your letter, wondering what I should do. You know how gladly, with what gratitude, I would have answered you, 'Yes, let the marriage go on,' if I dared. If I dared! But I think-don't you? — that a great trouble rather clears one's wits. I used to lie awake at Cairo and think; and the unimportant trivial considerations gradually dropped away; and a few straight and simple truths stood out rather vividly. One felt that one had to cling to them and with all one's might, because nothing else was left."