Fleda gave a faint, stubborn smile. "He cares for her too much." "I don't know," said Owen. "I thought I might hear this morning."!

"They'll read it first," said Mrs. Gereth. "Leaving you quite to yourself?"

"It has lasted long enough for my purpose. There was something I wanted to know, but I think I know it now." "Then if you're thinking of Owen, how can you bear to think?" If Fleda handed this communication to her friend as a triumphant gage of the innocence of the young man's heart, her elation lived but a moment after Mrs. Gereth had pounced upon the tell-tale spot in it. "Why in the world, then," that lady cried, "does he still not breathe a breath about the day, the day, the day?" She repeated the word with a crescendo of superior acuteness; she proclaimed that nothing could be more marked than its absence—an absence that simply spoke volumes. What did it prove in fine but that she was producing the effect she had toiled for—that she had settled or was rapidly settling Mona?