But I am well paid for it, for it has wrecked my life besides." Captain Willoughby could not understand, any more than General Feversham could have understood, or than Ethne had.

But Willoughby could at all events remember and repeat, and Ethne had grown by five years of unhappiness since the night when Harry Feversham, in the little room off the hall at Lennon House, had told her of his upbringing, of the loss of his mother, and the impassable gulf between his father and himself, and of the fear of disgrace which had haunted his nights and disfigured the world for him by day.
"Yes, it was an illusion," she cried.

"I understand.

I might have understood a long while since, but I would not.

When those feathers came he told me why they were sent, quite simply, with his eyes on mine.