And a thing tangible helped. I was
very glad to have it."
Durrance took the instrument from the table, handling it delicately,
like a sacred vessel.
"You have played upon it? The Musoline overture, perhaps," said he.
"Do you remember that?" she returned, with a laugh. "Yes, I have played
upon it, but only recently. For a long time I put my violin away. It
talked to me too intimately of many things 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.
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