The Four Feathers

f his countrywomen and the delicacy of their apparel, a solitary figure, sunburnt and stamped already with that indefinable expression of the eyes and face which marks the m

hts. She was comparing him with the picture which she had of him now three years old. She was looking for the small marks of change which those three years might

in a quiet voice. "He was thrown from his horse dur

rance answered awkward

out stirring. Durrance was embarrassed. He remembered Mr. Adair as a good-humoured man, whose one chief quality was his evident affection for his wife, but with what eyes the wife had looked upon him he had never up till now c

ersham and his

r was slo

tely she corrected herself, and said a little h

ed, and even when he was, his surpri

place?" he asked. Mrs. Adair looked sharply at him, as

she wishes," and Durrance nodded his assent. "The marria

urned at o

left England th

hen you

ing which occurred on the very night that

shrugged he

do not think that I have met any one who has even s

am, then, whom he had seen upon the pier as the Channel boat cast off. T

fter a pause, with a queer tim

air took her

said

is still a

ir shook

e a year ago. Did you ever hear

etter from Mr. Eustace, whom I did not know, but who knew from my friends at Letterkenny that I was coming past his house. He asked me to stay the

of toddy, which needed a single oyster simmering in the saucepan to give it its perfection of flavour. About two o'clock of a June morning the spirit lamp on which the saucepan stewed had bee

Dermod, already overpowered with debts, fell in a day upon complete ruin. He was drenched by the water hoses besides, and took a chill which nearly killed him, from the ef

, and indeed she spoke without feeling on one side or the other, but rather like a person constraining

st everything?

ome in Donegal," r

o her," said Durrance, slowly.

thne with all her ill-luck has reaso

ghter of the people about him, his eyes were refreshed by the women in their light-coloured frocks; and all the time his slow

you thinkin

ink women gather up into themselves what they have been through much more than we do. To them what is past becomes a real part of them, as much a part of them as a limb; to us it's always something external, at

e did not expressly agree. But a certa

lenalla. A track strikes up towards it from the road halfway between Rathmullen and Ra

et?" said Durrance. "I shal

ffled now by Durrance's resolve to remain in town. Why did he not travel at once to Donegal, she asked herself, since thither his thoughts undoubtedly preceded him. She heard of his continual presence

had just returned. Only once was he able to approach the topic of Harry Feversham's disappearance, and at the mere men

please," said he; and Durrance returned

tion. All through that June the afternoons and evenings found him at his post. Never a friend of Feversham's passed by the tree but Durrance had a

no more; he had dropped even out

officer limped into the courtyard, saw Durrance, hesit

rang up fro

id he. "You hav

but I remember you very well now. I think we met-let me see-where was it? An old man's memory, Co

embarrassment nor his previous he

e me news of my friend Feversham. Why was his engage

n. He had always been doubtful whether Durrance was aware o

world, I believe," said Sutch, "w

in no way d

d here a month for

ingers through his beard, and

itted. "I can answer your

ersham is

truth. Miss Eustace was betrothed to him, and she knows no

riosity which

rary, it is friendship," sai

a third one to you. It is one harder for me to ask than for you to answer. Would a friend of Harry Feversham be at al

startled Lieu

troubled than startled. For there had grown up within him a jealousy on behalf of Harry Feversham as strong as a mother's for a favourite second son. He had nursed with a most pleasurable anticipation a hope that, in the end, Harry would come back to a

asked

he knew enough of the man who questioned him to be certain that the lie would ha

el

m at this very moment, lost somewhere under the burning sun, and compared that picture with the one before his eyes-the successful soldier taking his ease at his club. He fel

el

gretfully. "There wo

Durrance took the