ve past, he listened to the chatter and the laughter of the
people about him, his eyes were refreshed by the women in their
light-coloured frocks; and all the time his slow mind was working toward
the lame expression of his philosophy. Mrs. Adair turned to him with a
slight impatience in the end.

"Of what are you thinking?" she asked.

"That women suffer much more than men when the world goes wrong with
them," he answered, and the answer was rather a question than a definite
assertion. "I know very little, of course. I can only guess. But I think
women gather up into themselves what they have been through much more
than we do. To them what is past becomes a real part of them, as much a
part of them as a limb; to us it's always something external, at the
best the rung of a ladder, at the worst a weight on the heel. Don't you
think so, too? I phrase the thought badly. But put it this way: Women
look backwards, we look ahead; so misfortune hits them harder, eh?"

Mrs. Adair answered in her own way. She did not expressly agree. But a
certain humility became audible in her voice.

"The mountain village at which Ethne is living," she said in a low
voice, "is called Glenalla. A track strikes up towards it from the road
halfway between Rathmullen and Ramelton." She rose as she finished the
sentence and held out her hand. "Shall I see you?"

"You are still in Hill Street?" said Durrance. "I shall be for a time
in London."

Mrs. Adair raised her eyebrows. She looked always by nature for the
intricate and concealed motive, so that conduct which sprang from a
reason, obvious and simple, was likely to baffle her. She was baffled
now by Durrance's resolve to remain in town. Why did he not travel at
once to Donegal, she asked herself, since thither his thoughts
undoubtedly preceded him. She heard of his continual presence at his
Service Club, and could not understand. She did not even have a
suspicion of his motive when he himself informed her that he had
travelled into Surrey and had spent a day with General Feversham.

It had been an ineffectual day for Durrance. The general kept him
steadily to the history of the campaign from which he had just returned.
Only once was he able to approach the topic of Harry Feversham's
disappearance, and at the mere mention of his son's name the old
general's face set like plaster. It became void of expression and
inattentive as a mask.

"We will talk of something else, if you please," sai