"No. I'm tired of them: I'm not tired of you. This is the way for you to feel most how much I rest on you." Fleda had a compunction, wondering as they continued to stroll whether it was right after all to leave her. She believed, however, that if the flame might for the moment burn low, it was far from dying out; an impression presently confirmed by the way Mrs. Gereth went on: "But one's fatigue is nothing. The idea under which one worked kept one up. For you I could—I can still. Nothing will have mattered if she's not there." "I explained to her fully your position and put before her much more strongly than she liked what seemed to me her absolute duty."!

"What did she mean by that?" "Does it happen to be in your power to give it a name?" Mrs. Gereth's face showed the dim dawn of an amusement at finding herself seated at the feet of her pupil.

CHAPTER VII "Why, those beautiful things." Owen gave her a gloomy glance; then he blew a speck off the crown of his hat. "But if you do have a set-to with her?"