Owen waited long enough to take in the question; then with a serenity startling even to her knowledge of his nature, "I don't think I can have really loved her, you know," he replied. "It came to Mona's knowledge—I can't tell you how, but it came—that the things I was sending back had begun to arrive at Poynton. I had sent them for you, but it was her I touched." Mrs. Gereth paused; Fleda was too absorbed in her explanation to do anything but take blankly the full, cold breath of this. "They were there, and that determined her."!

"Give what up?" Like lightning he had grasped her arm. "You mean you will talk of them?" Then as he began to take the flood of assent from her eyes: "You will listen to me? Oh, you dear, you dear—when, when?"

Fleda was silent a little. "All that didn't answer her question." Fleda hesitated a moment; after which she exclaimed with a certain hard pride: "He's enough in love with me for anything!" "The strain of what?"