The panic which had beset him when first he saw the dark brown walls of Berber, the night in the ruined acres, the stumbling search for the well amongst the shifting sandhills of Obak,--Ethne had vivid pictures of these incidents, and as she thought of each she asked herself: "Where was I then?
What was I doing ?" She sat in a golden mist until the lights began to change upon the still water of the creek, and the rooks wheeled noisily out from the tree-tops to sort themselves for the night, and warned her of evening.
She brought to the dinner-table that night a buoyancy of spirit which surprised her companions.

Mrs.Adair had to admit that seldom had her eyes shone so starrily, or the colour so freshly graced her cheeks.

She was more than ever certain that Captain Willoughby had brought stirring news; she was more than ever tortured by her vain efforts to guess its nature.

But Mrs.Adair, in spite of her perplexities, took her share in the talk, and that dinner passed with a freedom from embarrassment unknown since Durrance had come home to Guessens.

For he, too, threw off a burden of restraint; his spirits rose to match Ethne's; he answered laugh with laugh, and from his face that habitual look of tension, the look of a man listening with all his might that his ears might make good the loss of his eyes, passed altogether away.
"You will play on your violin to-night, I think," he said with a smile, as they rose from the table.
"Yes," she answered, "I will--with all my heart." Durrance laughed and held open the door.