"You spoke to him?" she asked suddenly.
"To whom? Oh, to Harry?" returned Durrance. "Yes, afterwards, when I
found out it was he who was playing the zither."
"Yes, how did you find out?" Ethne asked.
"The waltz came to an end. The old woman sank exhausted upon the bench
against the whitewashed wall; the young man raised his head from his
zither; the old man scraped a new chord upon his violin, and the girl
stood forward to sing. Her voice had youth and freshness, but no other
quality of music. Her singing was as inept as the rest of the
entertainment. Yet the old man smiled, the mother beat time with her
heavy foot, and nodded at her husband with pride in their daughter's
accomplishment. And again in the throng the ill-conditioned talk, the
untranslatable jests of the Arabs and the negroes went their round. It
was horrible, don't you think?"
"Yes," answered Ethne, but slowly, in an absent voice. As she had felt
no sympathy for Durrance when he began to speak, so she had none to
spare for these three outcasts of fortune. She was too absorbed in the
mystery of Harry Feversham's presence at Wadi Halfa. She was listening
too closely for the message which he sent to her.
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