Part 45 (1/2)

”I had your white feather.”

”But anything else? Any little thing which I had given you in the other days?”

”Nothing.”

”I had your photograph,” she said. ”I kept it.”

Feversham suddenly leaned down towards her.

”You did!”

Ethne nodded her head.

”Yes. The moment I went upstairs that night I packed up your presents and addressed them to your rooms.”

”Yes, I got them in London.”

”But I put your photograph aside first of all to keep. I burnt all your letters after I had addressed the parcel and taken it down to the hall to be sent away. I had just finished burning your letters when I heard your step upon the gravel in the early morning underneath my windows.

But I had already put your photograph aside. I have it now. I shall keep it and the feathers together.” She added after a moment:--

”I rather wish that you had had something of mine with you all the time.”

”I had no right to anything,” said Feversham.

There was still a narrow slip of gold upon the grey s.p.a.ce of stone.

”What will you do now?” she asked.

”I shall go home first and see my father. It will depend upon the way we meet.”

”You will let Colonel Durrance know. I would like to hear about it.”

”Yes, I will write to Durrance.”

The slip of gold was gone, the clear light of a summer evening filled the church, a light without radiance or any colour.

”I shall not see you for a long while,” said Ethne, and for the first time her voice broke in a sob. ”I shall not have a letter from you again.”

She leaned a little forward and bent her head, for the tears had gathered in her eyes. But she rose up bravely from her seat, and together they went out of the church side by side. She leaned towards him as they walked so that they touched.

Feversham untied his horse and mounted it. As his foot touched the stirrup Ethne caught her dog close to her.

”Good-bye,” she said. She did not now even try to smile, she held out her hand to him. He took it and bent down from his saddle close to her.

She kept her eyes steadily upon him though the tears brimmed in them.

”Good-bye,” he said. He held her hand just for a little while, and then releasing it, rode down the hill. He rode for a hundred yards, stopped and looked back. Ethne had stopped, too, and with this s.p.a.ce between them and their faces towards one another they remained. Ethne made no sign of recognition or farewell. She just stood and looked. Then she turned away and went up the village street towards her house alone and very slowly. Feversham watched her till she went in at the gate, but she became dim and blurred to his vision before even she had reached it. He was able to see, however, that she did not look back again.

He rode down the hill. The bad thing which he had done so long ago was not even by his six years of labour to be destroyed. It was still to live, its consequence was to be sorrow till the end of life for another than himself. That she took the sorrow bravely and without complaint, doing the straight and simple thing as her loyal nature bade her, did not diminish Harry Feversham's remorse. On the contrary it taught him yet more clearly that she least of all deserved unhappiness. The harm was irreparable. Other women might have forgotten, but not she. For Ethne was of those who neither lightly feel nor lightly forget, and if they love cannot love with half a heart. She would be alone now, he knew, in spite of her marriage, alone up to the very end and at the actual moment of death.