"Then won't yours do?" Mrs. Gereth demanded. "Haven't I had it from your own mouth that he cares for you?" Fleda hesitated. "You mean their marriage?"!

"Wouldn't it perhaps after all be better," she asked, "before doing this, to see if we can make his whereabouts certain?" "He hasn't told her so," Fleda said.

Whatever he said or did, she somehow liked him the better for it. "How can I back her up, Mr. Gereth, when I think, as I tell you, that she has made a great mistake?" She had once more disengaged herself, with the private vow that he shouldn't yet touch her again. It was all too horribly soon—her sense of this was rapidly surging back. "We mustn't talk, we mustn't talk; we must wait!" she intensely insisted. "I don't know what you mean by your freedom; I don't see it, I don't feel it. Where is it yet, where, your freedom? If it's real there's plenty of time, and if it isn't there's more than enough. I hate myself," she protested, "for having anything to say about her: it's like waiting for dead men's shoes! What business is it of mine what she does? She has her own trouble and her own plan. It's too hideous to watch her and count on her!" Fleda wondered. "To me, do you mean?"