But he waited for her.
"I am going to be married," she said at length, "and immediately. I am
to marry a friend of yours, Colonel Durrance."
There was hardly a pause before Feversham answered:--
"He has cared for you a long while. I was not aware of it until I went
away, but, thinking over everything, I thought it likely, and in a very
little time I became sure."
"He is blind."
"Blind!" exclaimed Feversham. "He, of all men, blind!"
"Exactly," said Ethne. "He--of all men. His blindness explains
everything--why I marry him, why I send you away. It was after he went
blind that I became engaged to him. It was before Captain Willoughby
came to me with the first feather. It was between those two events. You
see, after you went away one thought over things rather carefully. I
used to lie awake and think, and I resolved that two men's lives should
not be spoilt because of me."
"Mine was not," Feversham interrupted. "Please believe that."
"Partly it was," she returned, "I know very well. You would not own it
for my sake, but it was. I was determined that a second should not be.
And so when Colonel Durrance went blind--you know the man he was, you
can understand what blindness meant to him, the loss of everything he
cared for--"
"Except you.
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