She
was close by the window; a single silent step, and she was across the
sill and free. Durrance continued to speak out of the darkness,
engrossed in what he said, and Ethne did not listen to a word. She
gathered her skirts carefully, so that they should not rustle, and
stepped from the window. This was the third slip which she made upon
that eventful night.
CHAPTER XIX
MRS. ADAIR INTERFERES
Ethne had thought to escape quite unobserved; but Mrs. Adair was sitting
upon the terrace in the shadow of the house and not very far from the
open window of the drawing-room. She saw Ethne lightly cross the terrace
and run down the steps into the garden, and she wondered at the
precipitancy of her movements. Ethne seemed to be taking flight, and in
a sort of desperation. The incident was singular, and remarkably
singular to Mrs. Adair, who from the angle in which she sat commanded a
view of that open window through which the moonlight shone. She had seen
Ethne turn out the lamp, and the swift change in the room from light to
dark, with its suggestion of secrecy and the private talk of lovers, had
been a torture to her. But she had not fled from the torture.
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