ght wind of the desert
blowing upon his face.

"If he could only hear!" she thought. "If he could only wake and know
that what he heard was a message of friendship!"

And with this fancy in her mind she played with such skill as she had
never used before; she made of her violin a voice of sympathy. The fancy
grew and changed as she played. The music became a bridge swung in
mid-air across the world, upon which just for these few minutes she and
Harry Feversham might meet and shake hands. They would separate, of
course, forthwith, and each one go upon the allotted way. But these few
minutes would be a help to both along the separate ways. The chords rang
upon silence. It seemed to Ethne that they declaimed the pride which had
come to her that day. Her fancy grew into a belief. It was no longer "If
he should hear," but "He _must_ hear!" And so carried away was she from
the discretion of thought that a strange hope suddenly sprang up and
enthralled her.

"If he could answer!"

She lingered upon the last bars, waiting for the answer; and when the
music had died down to silence, she sat with her violin upon her knees,
looking eagerly out across the moonlit garden.

And an answer did come, but it was not carried up the creek and across
the lawn. It came from the dark shadows of the room behind her, and it
was spoken through the voice of Durrance.

"Ethne, where do you think I heard that overture last played?"

Ethne was roused with a start to the consciousness that Durrance was in
the room, and she answered like one shaken suddenly out of sleep.

"Why, you told me. At Ramelton, when you first came to Lennon House."

"I have heard it since, though it was not played by you. It was not
really played at all. But a melody of it and not even that really, but a
suggestion of a melody, I heard stumbled out upon a zither, with many
false notes, by a Greek in a bare little whitewashed cafe, lit by one
glaring lamp, at Wadi Halfa."

"This overture?" she said. "How strange!"

"Not so strange after all. For the Greek was Harry Feversham."

So the answer had come. Ethne had no doubt that it was an answer. She
sat very still in the moonlight; only had any one bent over her with
eyes to see, he would have discovered that her eyelids were closed.
There followed a long silence. She did not consider why Durrance, having
kept this knowledge secret so long, should speak of it now. She did not
ask what Harry Feversham was doing that