Mrs. Adair raised her eyebrows. She looked always by nature for the intricate and concealed motive, so that conduct which sprang from a reason, obvious and simple, was likely to baffle her. She was baffled 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 at his Service Club, and could not understand. She did not even have a suspicion of his motive when he himself informed her that he had travelled into Surrey and had spent a day with General Feversham.
It had been an ineffectual day for Durrance. The general kept him steadily to the history of the campaign from which he had just returned. Only once was he able to approach the topic of Harry Feversham's disappearance, and at the mere mention of his son's name the old general's face set like plaster. It became void of expression and inattentive as a mask.
"We will talk of something else, if you please," said he; and Durrance returned to London not an inch nearer to Donegal.
Thereafter he sat under the great tree in the inner courtyard of his club, talking to this man and to that, and still unsatisfied with the conversation. 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 word for him, and the word led always to a question. But the question elicited no answer except a shrug of the shoulders, and a "Hanged if I know!"
Harry Feversham's place knew him no more; he had dropped even out of the speculations of his friends.
Toward the end of June, however, an old retired naval officer limped into the courtyard, saw Durrance, hesitated, and began with a remarkable alacrity to move away.
Durrance sprang up from his seat.
"Mr. Sutch," said he. "You have forgotten me?"
"Colonel Durrance, to be sure," said the embarrassed lieutenant. "It is some while since we met, but I remember you very well now. I think we met—let me see—where was it? An old man's memory, Colonel Durrance, is like a leaky ship. It comes to harbour with its cargo of recollections swamped."
Neither the lieutenant's present embarrassment nor his previous hesitation escaped Durrance's notice.