In redeeming his honour in the
eyes of one of the three he has done enough, he has redeemed it in the
eyes of all."
But he had gone south to join Colonel Trench in Omdurman. Of that
squalid and shadowless town, of its hideous barbarities, of the horrors
of its prison-house, Ethne knew nothing at all. But Captain Willoughby
had hinted enough to fill her imagination with terrors. He had offered
to explain to her what captivity in Omdurman implied, and she wrung her
hands, as she remembered that she had refused to listen. What cruelties
might not be practised? Even now, at that very hour perhaps, on this
night of summer--but she dared not let her thoughts wander that way....
The lapping of the tide against the banks was like the music of a river.
It brought to Ethne's mind one particular river which had sung and
babbled in her ears when five years ago she had watched out another
summer night till dawn. Never had she so hungered for her own country
and the companionship of its brown hills and streams. No, not even this
afternoon, when she had sat at her window and watched the lights change
upon the creek. Donegal had a sanctity for her, it seemed when she
dwelled in it to set her in a way apart from and above earthly taints;
and as her heart went out in a great longing towards it now, a sudden
fierce loathing for the concealments, the shifts and maneuvers which
she had practised, and still must practise, sprang up within her.
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