Feversham smiled at last.
"Perhaps she has now seen Willoughby; perhaps she has now taken his
feather."
Trench held out his hand to his companion.
"I will take mine back now."
Feversham shook his head.
"No, not yet," and Trench's face suddenly lighted up. A hope which had
struggled up in his hopeless breast during the three days and nights of
his watch, a hope which he had striven to repress for very fear lest it
might prove false, sprang to life.
"Not yet,--then you _have_ a plan for our escape," and the anxiety
returned to Feversham's face.
"I said nothing of it," he pleaded, "tell me that! When I was delirious
in the prison there, I said nothing of it, I breathed no word of it? I
told you of the four feathers, I told you of Ethne, but of the plan for
your escape I said nothing."
"Not a single word. So that I myself was in doubt, and did not dare to
believe," and Feversham's anxiety died away. He had spoken with his hand
trembling upon Trench's arm, and his voice itself had trembled with
alarm.
"You see if I spoke of that in the House of Stone," he exclaimed, "I
might have spoken of it in Dongola. For in Dongola as well as in
Omdurman I was delirious.
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