CHAPTER VII Owen waited a little. "And having done that, you departed?"!

"I couldn't stand the way she treated you, and that was what I had to say to her," Owen returned. "All day long," Fleda smiled.

"I asked for you," he said when she stood there, "because I heard from the flyman who drove me from the station to the inn that he had brought you here yesterday. We had some talk, and he mentioned it." But Mrs. Gereth had obviously now had some practice in following queer movements prompted by queer feelings. She resigned herself, though she fingered the paper a moment longer. She appeared to hesitate; then she brought out: "You couldn't then, if I release you, make your message a little stronger?" "They're married?"