's curiosity was satisfied with the knowledge that Abou Fatma
had not recovered the letters. "Quite so. Since Gordon was dead, for no
reason."

"For no obvious reason, I think I said," Durrance remarked
imperturbably. Willoughby turned and glanced suspiciously at his
companion, wondering whether, after all, Durrance knew of his visit to
Kingsbridge and its motive. Durrance, however, smoked his cigar, leaning
back in his chair with his face tilted up towards the ceiling. He
seemed, now that his curiosity was satisfied, to have lost interest in
the history of the Gordon letters. At all events, he put no more
questions upon that subject to embarrass Captain Willoughby, and indeed
there was no need that he should. Thinking over the possible way by
which Harry Feversham might have redeemed himself in Willoughby's eyes
from the charge of cowardice, Durrance could only hit upon this recovery
of the letters from the ruined wall in Berber. There had been no
personal danger to the inhabitants of Suakin since the days of that last
reconnaissance. The great troop-ships had steamed between the coral
reefs towards Suez, and no cry for help had ever summoned them back.
Willoughby risked only his health in that white palace on the Red Sea.
There could not have been a moment when Feversham was in a position to
say, "Your life was forfeit but for me, whom you call coward." And
Durrance, turning over in his mind all the news and gossip which had
come to him at Wadi Halfa or during his furloughs, had been brought to
conjecture whether that fugitive from Khartum, who had told him his
story in the glacis of the silent ruined fort of Sinkat during one
drowsy afternoon of May, had not told it again at Suakin within
Feversham's hearing. He was convinced now that his conjecture was
correct.

Willoughby's reticence was in itself a sufficient confirmation.
Willoughby, without doubt, had been instructed by Ethne to keep his
tongue in a leash. Colonel Durrance was prepared for reticence, he
looked to reticence as the answer to his conjecture. His trained ear,
besides, had warned him that Willoughby was uneasy at his visit and
careful in his speech. There had been pauses, during which Durrance was
as sure as though he had eyes wherewith to see, that his companion was
staring at him suspiciously and wondering how much he knew, or how
little. There had been an accent of wariness and caution in his voice,
which was hatefully familiar to Durrance's ear