But so much was beyond her strength.

For as Colonel Durrance began to speak again, the desire to escape, to be alone with this terrible news, became irresistible.

The cool quietude of the garden, the dark shadows of the trees, called to her.
"Perhaps you will wonder," said Durrance, "why I have told you to-night what I have up till now kept to myself.

I did not dare to tell it you before.

I want to explain why." Ethne did not notice the exultation in his voice; she did not consider what his explanation might be; she only felt that she could not now endure to listen to it.