"
"It implies no sacrifice," she answered firmly.
Durrance nodded. It was evident that the answer contented him, and Ethne
felt that it was the intonation to which he listened rather than the
words. His very attitude of concentration showed her that. She began to
wonder whether it would be so easy after all to quiet his suspicions now
that he was blind; she began to realise that it might possibly on that
very account be all the more difficult.
"Then do you bring more than friendship?" he asked suddenly. "You will
be very honest, I know. Tell me."
Ethne was in a quandary. She knew that she must answer, and at once and
without ambiguity. In addition, she must answer honestly.
"There is nothing," she replied, and as firmly as before, "nothing in
the world which I wish for so earnestly as that you and I should marry."
It was an honest wish, and it was honestly spoken. She knew nothing of
the conversation which had passed between Harry Feversham and Lieutenant
Sutch in the grill-room of the Criterion Restaurant; she knew nothing of
Harry's plans; she had not heard of the Gordon letters recovered from
the mud-wall of a ruined house in the city of the Dervishes on the Nile
bank.
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