The more Durrance reflected, the more certain he felt that he had at last hit upon the truth.

Nothing could be more natural than that Castleton should telegraph his good news in confidence to his friends.
Durrance had the story now complete, or rather, the sequence of facts complete.

For why Feversham should have been seized with panic, why he should have played the coward the moment after he was engaged to Ethne Eustace--at a time, in a word, when every manly quality he possessed should have been at its strongest and truest, remained for Durrance, and indeed, was always to remain, an inexplicable problem.

But he put that question aside, classing it among the considerations which he had learnt to estimate as small and unimportant.

The simple and true thing--the thing of real importance--emerged definite and clear: Harry Feversham was atoning for his one act of cowardice with a full and an overflowing measure of atonement.
"I shall astonish old Sutch," he thought, with a chuckle.