"
"You gave the feathers back into Feversham's hand--"
"He told you that himself?"
"Yes;" and Willoughby resumed, "in order that he might by his
subsequent bravery compel the men who sent them to take them back, and
so redeem his honour."
"He did not tell you that?"
"No. I guessed it. You see, Feversham's disgrace was, on the face of it,
impossible to retrieve. The opportunity might never have occurred--it
was not likely to occur. As things happened, Feversham still waited for
three years in the bazaar at Suakin before it did. No, Miss Eustace, it
needed a woman's faith to conceive that plan--a woman's encouragement to
keep the man who undertook it to his work."
Ethne laughed and turned back to him. Her face was tender with pride,
and more than tender. Pride seemed in some strange way to hallow her, to
give an unimagined benignance to her eyes, an unearthly brightness to
the smile upon her lips and the colour upon her cheeks. So that
Willoughby, looking at her, was carried out of himself.
"Yes," he cried, "you were the woman to plan this redemption."
Ethne laughed again, and very happily.
"Did he tell you of a fourth white feather?" she asked.
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