He was
recalled by the pressure of Dermod's hand upon his elbow. There was a
gleam of inquiry in the old man's faded eyes, but it seemed that speech
itself was a difficulty.
"You have news for me?" he asked, after some hesitation. "News of Harry
Feversham? I thought that I would ask you before you went away."
"None," said Durrance.
"I am sorry," replied Dermod, wistfully, "though I have no reason for
sorrow. He struck us a cruel blow, Colonel Durrance.--I should have
nothing but curses for him in my mouth and my heart. A black-throated
coward my reason calls him, and yet I would be very glad to hear how the
world goes with him. You were his friend. But you do not know?"
It was actually of Harry Feversham that Dermod Eustace was speaking, and
Durrance, as he remarked the old man's wistfulness of voice and face,
was seized with a certain remorse that he had allowed Ethne so to
thrust his friend out of his thoughts. He speculated upon the mystery of
Harry Feversham's disappearance at times as he sat in the evening upon
his verandah above the Nile at Wadi Halfa, piecing together the few
hints which he had gathered. "A black-throated coward," Dermod had
called Harry Feversham, and Ethne had said enough to assure him that
something graver than any dispute, something which had destroyed all her
faith in the man, had put an end to their betrothal.
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