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 doards her
”You did!”
Ethne nodded her head
”Yes The ht I packed up your presents and addressed theot theraph 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 earlyunderneath raph aside I have it now I shall keep it and the feathers together” She added after aof ,” said Feversharey space of stone
”What will you do now?” she asked
”I shall go home first and see my father It will depend upon the e meet”
”You will let Colonel Durrance knoould like to hear about it”
”Yes, I rite to Durrance”
The slip of gold was gone, the clear light of a suht 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 froain”
She leaned a little forward and bent her head, for the tears had gathered in her eyes But she rose up bravely froether 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 ht 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 hih 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 space between them and their faces towards one another they renition or farewell She just stood and looked Then she turned away and went up the village street towards her house alone and very slowly Fevershaate, 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 co as her loyal nature bade her, did not diht him yet more clearly that she least of all deserved unhappiness The harotten, 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 e, alone up to the very end and at the actual moment of death
CHAPTER xxxIII
ETHNE AGAIN PLAYS THE MUSOLINE OVERTURE