"Then won't yours do?" Mrs. Gereth demanded. "Haven't I had it from your own mouth that he cares for you?" "Quite proper," said Mrs. Gereth austerely. Then to Fleda: "Please go to him."!

"We're together, we're together," said Mrs. Gereth. She looked helpless as she sat there, her eyes, unseeingly enough, on a tall Dutch clock, old but rather poor, that Maggie had had as a wedding-gift and that eked out the bareness of the room. Fleda marveled: her companion had in an instant become young again. "Away from Mona? How in the world—?"

She couldn't, however, succeed for so very many minutes in deferring her exposure. "Why didn't you wait, dearest? Ah, why didn't you wait?"—if that inconsequent appeal kept rising to her lips to be cut short before it was spoken, this was only because at first the humility of gratitude helped her to gain time, enabled her to present herself very honestly as too overcome to be clear. She kissed her companion's hands, she did homage at her feet, she murmured soft snatches of praise, and yet in the midst of it all was conscious that what she really showed most was the wan despair at her heart. She saw Mrs. Gereth's glimpse of this despair suddenly widen, heard the quick chill of her voice pierce through the false courage of endearments. "Do you mean to tell me at such an hour as this that you've really lost him?" "You didn't know I was here?" Mrs. Gereth drank off her second cup. "And you're not afraid now?"