He was able to realise what she had
suffered, since he was suffering in much the same way himself. It was
quite intelligible to him why she had betrayed Ethne's secret that night
upon the terrace, and he could not but be gentle with her.
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Adair," he repeated lamely. There was nothing
more which he could find to say, and he held out his hand to her.
"Good-bye," she said, and Durrance climbed over the stile and crossed
the fields to his house.
Mrs. Adair stood by that stile for a long while after he had gone. She
had shot her bolt and hit no one but herself and the man for whom she
cared.
She realised that distinctly. She looked forward a little, too, and she
understood that if Durrance did not, after all, keep Ethne to her
promise and marry her and go with her to her country, he would come back
to Guessens. That reflection showed Mrs. Adair yet more clearly the
folly of her outcry. If she had only kept silence, she would have had a
very true and constant friend for her neighbour, and that would have
been something. It would have been a good deal. But, since she had
spoken, they could never meet without embarrassment, and, practise
cordiality as they might, there would always remain in their minds the
recollection of what she had said and he had listened to on the
afternoon when he left for Wiesbaden.
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