"Then you'll be so good as to make them on the spot!" Mrs. Gereth was most emphatic. "You're going abroad with me." "Derived from him?"!

"I dare say he thinks it may come to that." Again the good lady looked hard at her young hostess. "I came, I believe, Fleda, just, you know, to plead with you."

"A bibelot the more or the less," Fleda said, "could have made little difference in this grand general view of you. I take you simply for the greatest of all conjurers. You've operated with a quickness—and with a quietness!" Her voice trembled a little as she spoke, for the plain meaning of her words was that what her friend had achieved belonged to the class of operation essentially involving the protection of darkness. Fleda felt she really could say nothing at all if she couldn't say that she knew what the danger had been. She completed her thought by a resolute and perfectly candid question: "How in the world did you get off with them?" "I'll leave it all to my solicitor. He won't let her off: by Jove, I know the fellow!" "Go on—I can bear it now," said Mrs. Gereth. Her companion had just perceptibly paused.