"Ethne," he said.
"It isn't true, then," she exclaimed. "You have recovered." The words were forced from her by the readiness of his movement.
"It is quite true, and I have not recovered," he answered. "But you moved at the window and so I knew that you were there."
"How did you know? I made no noise."
"No, but the window's open. The noise in the street became suddenly louder, so I knew that some one in front of the window had moved aside. I guessed that it was you."
Their words were thus not perhaps the most customary greeting between a couple meeting on the first occasion after they have become engaged, but they served to hinder embarrassment. Ethne shrank from any perfunctory expression of regret, knowing that there was no need for it, and Durrance had no wish to hear it. For there were many things which these two understood each other well enough to take as said. They did no more than shake hands when they had spoken, and Ethne moved back into the room.
"I will give you some tea," she said, "then we can talk."
"Yes, we must have a talk, mustn't we?" Durrance answered seriously. He threw off his serious air, however, and chatted with good humour about the details of his journey home. He even found a subject of amusement in his sense of helplessness during the first days of his blindness; and Ethne's apprehensions rapidly diminished. They had indeed almost vanished from her mind when something in his attitude suddenly brought them back.
"I wrote to you from Wadi Halfa," he said. "I don't know whether you could read the letter."
"Quite well," said Ethne.