Fleda thought an instant. "You mean makes her hesitate to keep you—not hesitate to renounce you?" "I don't want to see any letter," said Fleda. "You'll miss your train."!

"Has let herself go." Mrs. Gereth spoke as if she saw it in every detail. "It wasn't with me you were in love, my duck." Then Mrs. Gereth added: "I'll go and tell him."

But Fleda went luminously on; she once more enjoyed her great command of her subject: "I think that when you came to see me at Maggie's you saw too many things, you had too many ideas." She couldn't, however, succeed for so very many minutes in deferring her exposure. "Why didn't you wait, dearest? Ah, why didn't you wait?"—if that inconsequent appeal kept rising to her lips to be cut short before it was spoken, this was only because at first the humility of gratitude helped her to gain time, enabled her to present herself very honestly as too overcome to be clear. She kissed her companion's hands, she did homage at her feet, she murmured soft snatches of praise, and yet in the midst of it all was conscious that what she really showed most was the wan despair at her heart. She saw Mrs. Gereth's glimpse of this despair suddenly widen, heard the quick chill of her voice pierce through the false courage of endearments. "Do you mean to tell me at such an hour as this that you've really lost him?" "How came you to know my house?" Fleda asked.