Fleda paid this statement the homage of a minute's muteness. "As to that, naturally, she has reason." "In my name. I noticed a place at the corner."!

Mrs. Gereth shrugged her shoulders. "How came you to know my house?" Fleda asked.

"He has done it," said Mrs. Gereth, turning her eyes avoidingly but not unperceivingly about her and in spite of herself dropping an opinion upon the few objects in the room. Fleda, on her side, in her silence, observed how characteristically she looked at Maggie's possessions before looking at Maggie's sister. The girl understood and at first had nothing to say; she was still dumb while Mrs. Gereth selected, with hesitation, a seat less distasteful than the one that happened to be nearest. On the sofa near the window the poor woman finally showed what the two past days had done for the age of her face. Her eyes at last met Fleda's. "It's the end." "Didn't he answer the note in which you let him know that I was in town?" Fleda asked. Something in her manner prompted her companion, with a certain inconsequence, to speak again. "That was partly why I came back to you, you know—that there should be the less possibility of anything painful."