"If he shouldn't be there," Fleda interrupted, "there will be no harm done." Mrs. Gereth gave a dry, flat laugh. "You're prodigious! But how shall you possibly be more out of it? Owen and I—" She didn't finish her sentence.!

"Nor his mother, miss—not a soul of them back. A pack o' servants in charge—not the old lady's lot, eh? A nice job for care-takers! Some rotten chimley or one of them portable lamps set down in the wrong place. What has done it is this cruel, cruel night." Then as a great wave of smoke half choked them, he drew her with force to the little waiting room. "Awkward for you, miss—I see!" "It's the sharpest thing I ever saw in my life!" They looked at each other with intelligence, in appreciation of the sharpness, and Owen quickly broke into a loud laugh. The laugh was in itself natural, but the occasion of it strange; and stranger still, to Fleda, so that she too almost laughed, the inconsequent charity with which he added: "Poor dear old Mummy! That's one of the reasons I asked for you," he went on—"to see if you'd back her up."

"Even the Maltese cross. Why not that as well as everything else?—especially as I remembered how you like it." "I am, but you're not!" Owen exclaimed. "To take means?" Fleda repeated.