"To be sure, Trench was present. It will be a long time, I am afraid, before we dine at the same table with poor old Trench again."
The carelessness of his voice was well assumed; he leaned forwards and struck another match and lighted his pipe. As he did so, Durrance laid down his cigar upon the table edge.
"And we shall never dine with Castleton again," he said slowly.
"Castleton wasn't there," Willoughby exclaimed, and quickly enough to betray that, however long the interval since that little dinner in Feversham's rooms, it was at all events still distinct in his recollections.
"No, but he was expected," said Durrance.
"No, not even expected," corrected Willoughby. "He was dining elsewhere. He sent the telegram, you remember."
"Ah, yes, a telegram came," said Durrance.
That dinner party certainly deserved consideration. Willoughby, Trench, Castleton-these three men were the cause of Harry Feversham's disgrace and disappearance. Durrance tried to recollect all the details of the evening; but he had been occupied himself on that occasion. He remembered leaning against the window above St. James's Park; he remembered hearing the tattoo from the parade-ground of Wellington Barracks-and a telegram had come.
Durrance made up another picture in his mind. Harry Feversham at the table reading and re-reading his telegram, Trench and Willoughby waiting silently, perhaps expectantly, and himself paying no heed, but staring out from the bright room into the quiet and cool of the park.
"Castleton was dining with a big man from the War Office that night," Durrance said, and a little movement at his side warned him that he was getting hot in his search. He sat for a while longer talking about the prospects of the Soudan, and then rose up from his chair.
"Well, I can rely on you, Willoughby, to help Feversham if ever you find him. Draw on me for money."
"I will do my best," said Willoughby. "You are going? I could have won a bet off you this afternoon."
"How?"
"You said that you did not let your cigars go out. This one's stone cold."
"I forgot about it; I was thinking of Feversham. Good-bye."
He took a cab and drove away from the club door. Willoughby was glad to see the last of him, but he was fairly satisfied with his own exhibition of diplomacy. It would have been strange, after all, he thought, if he had not been able to hoodwink poor old Durrance; and he returned to the smoking-room and refreshed himself with a whiskey and potass.
Durrance, however, had not been hoodwinked. The last perplexing question had been answered for him that afternoon. He remembered now that no mention had been made at the dinner which could identify the sender of the telegram. Feversham had read it without a word, and without a word had crumpled it up and tossed it into the fire. But to-day Willoughby had told him that it had come from Castleton, and Castleton had been dining with a high official of the War Office. The particular act of cowardice which had brought the three white feathers to Ramelton was easy to discern. Almost the next day Feversham had told Durrance in the Row that he had resigned his commission, and Durrance knew that he had not resigned it when the telegram came. That telegram could have brought only one piece of news, that Feversham's regiment was ordered on active service. The more Durrance reflected, the more certain he felt that he had at last hit upon the truth. Nothing could be more natural than that Castleton should telegraph his good news in confidence to his friends. Durrance had the story now complete, or rather, the sequence of facts complete. For why Feversham should have been seized with panic, why he should have played the coward the moment after he was engaged to Ethne Eustace-at a time, in a word, when every manly quality he possessed should have been at its strongest and truest, remained for Durrance, and indeed, was always to remain, an inexplicable problem. But he put that question aside, classing it among the considerations which he had learnt to estimate as small and unimportant. The simple and true thing-the thing of real importance-emerged definite and clear: Harry Feversham was atoning for his one act of cowardice with a full and an overflowing measure of atonement.
"I shall astonish old Sutch," he thought, with a chuckle. He took the night mail into Devonshire the same evening, and reached his home before midday.
Chapter XXIII — Mrs. Adair Makes Her Apology
Within the drawing-room at The Pool, Durrance said good-bye to Ethne. He had so arranged it that there should be little time for that leave-taking, and already the carriage stood at the steps of Guessens, with his luggage strapped upon the roof and his servant waiting at the door.
Ethne came out with him on to the terrace, where Mrs. Adair stood at the top of the flight of steps. Durrance held out his hand to her, but she turned to Ethne and said: "I want to speak to Colonel Durrance before he goes."
"Very well," said Ethne. "Then we will say good-bye here," she added to Durrance. "You will write from Wiesbaden? Soon, please!"
"The moment I arrive," answered Durrance. He descended the steps with Mrs. Adair, and left Ethne standing upon the terrace. The last scene of pretence had been acted out, the months of tension and surveillance had come to an end, and both were thankful for their release. Durrance showed that he was glad even in the briskness of his walk, as he crossed the lawn at Mrs. Adair's side. She, however, lagged, and when she spoke it was in a despondent voice.
"So you are going," she said. "In two days' time you will be at Wiesbaden and Ethne at Glenalla. We shall all be scattered. It will be lonely here."
She had had her way; she had separated Ethne and Durrance for a time at all events; she was no longer to be tortured by the sight of them and the sound of their voices; but somehow her interference had brought her little satisfaction. "The house will seem very empty after you are all gone," she said; and she turned at Durrance's side and walked down with him into the garden.
"We shall come back, no doubt," said Durrance, reassuringly.
Mrs. Adair looked about her garden. The flowers were gone, and the sunlight; clouds stretched across the sky overhead, the green of the grass underfoot was dull, the stream ran grey in the gap between the trees, and the leaves from the branches were blown russet and yellow about the lawns.
"How long shall you stay at Wiesbaden?" she asked.
"I can hardly tell. But as long as it's advisable," he answered.
"That tells me nothing at all. I suppose it was meant not to tell me anything."
Durrance did not answer her, and she resented his silence. She knew nothing whatever of his plans; she was unaware whether he meant to break his engagement with Ethne or to hold her to it, and curiosity consumed her. It might be a very long time before she saw him again, and all that long time she must remain tortured with doubts.
"You distrust me?" she said defiantly, and with a note of anger in her voice.
Durrance answered her quite gently: "Have I no reason to distrust you? Why did you tell me of Captain Willoughby's coming? Why did you interfere?"
"I thought you ought to know."
"But Ethne wished the secret kept. I am glad to know, very glad. But, after all, you told me, and you were Ethne's friend."
"Yours, too, I hope," Mrs. Adair answered, and she exclaimed: "How could I go on keeping silence? Don't you understand?"
"No."
Durrance might have understood, but he had never given much thought to Mrs. Adair, and she knew it. The knowledge rankled within her, and his simple "no" stung her beyond bearing.
"I spoke brutally, didn't I?" she said. "I told you the truth as brutally as I could. Doesn't that help you to understand?"
Again Durrance said "No," and the monosyllable exasperated her out of all prudence, and all at once she found herself speaking incoherently the things which she had thought. And once she had begun, she could not stop. She stood, as it were, outside of herself, and saw that her speech was madness; yet she went on with it.