gs which I wished to forget,"
and these words, like the rest, she spoke without hesitation or any
down-dropping of the eyes.

Durrance fetched up his luggage from Rathmullen the next day, and stayed
at the farm for a week. But up to the last hour of his visit no further
reference was made to Harry Feversham by either Ethne or Durrance,
although they were thrown much into each other's company. For Dermod was
even more broken than Mrs. Adair's description had led Durrance to
expect. His speech was all dwindled to monosyllables; his frame was
shrunken, and his clothes bagged upon his limbs; his very stature seemed
lessened; even the anger was clouded from his eye; he had become a
stay-at-home, dozing for the most part of the day by a fire, even in
that July weather; his longest walk was to the little grey church which
stood naked upon a mound some quarter of a mile away and within view of
the windows, and even that walk taxed his strength. He was an old man
fallen upon decrepitude, and almost out of recognition, so that his
gestures and the rare tones of his voice struck upon Durrance as
something painful, like the mimicry of a dead man. His collie dog seemed
to age in company, and, to see them side by side, one might have said,
in sympathy.

Durrance and Ethne were thus thrown much together. By day, in the wet
weather or the fine, they tramped the hills, while she, with the colour
glowing in her face, and her eyes most jealous and eager, showed him
her country and exacted his admiration. In the evenings she would take
her violin, and sitting as of old with an averted face, she would bid
the strings speak of the heights and depths. Durrance sat watching the
sweep of her arm, the absorption of her face, and counting up his
chances. He had not brought with him to Glenalla Lieutenant Sutch's
anticipations that he would succeed. The shadow of Harry Feversham might
well separate them. For another thing, he knew very well that poverty
would fall more lightly upon her than upon most women. He had indeed had
proofs of that. Though the Lennon House was altogether ruined, and its
lands gone from her, Ethne was still amongst her own people. They still
looked eagerly for her visits; she was still the princess of that
country-side. On the other hand, she took a frank pleasure in his
company, and she led him to speak of his three years' service in the
East. No detail was too insignificant for her inquiries, and while he
spoke her eyes