"I am most grateful for it," she returned.
"It's a bit of a muddle, isn't it?" Willoughby remarked. "It seems a
little rough on Feversham perhaps. It's a little rough on Jack Durrance,
too, when you come to think of it." Then he looked at Ethne. He noticed
her careful handling of the feather; he remembered something of the
glowing look with which she had listened to his story, something of the
eager tones in which she had put her questions; and he added, "I
shouldn't wonder if it was rather rough on you too, Miss Eustace."
Ethne did not answer him, and they walked together out of the enclosure
towards the spot where Willoughby had moored his boat. She hurried him
down the bank to the water's edge, intent that he should sail away
unperceived.
But Ethne had counted without Mrs. Adair, who all that morning had seen
much in Ethne's movements to interest her. From the drawing-room window
she had watched Ethne and Durrance meet at the foot of the
terrace-steps, she had seen them walk together towards the estuary, she
had noticed Willoughby's boat as it ran aground in the wide gap between
the trees, she had seen a man disembark, and Ethne go forward to meet
him.
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