Fleda shook her head wearily. "No—I was only in love with him!" CHAPTER XXI!

"Oh dear, yes!" Owen repeated. At this she knew. "Poynton's on fire?"

"No. He told me nothing but the great gawk of a fact. I saw him but for three minutes." She was silent again, and Fleda, as before some lurid image of this interview, sat without speaking. "Do you wish to appear as if you don't care?" Mrs. Gereth presently demanded. "Well, I shall, thank God! Till then"—and with this, for the first time, Mrs. Gereth put out her hand—"don't desert me." "It came to Mona's knowledge—I can't tell you how, but it came—that the things I was sending back had begun to arrive at Poynton. I had sent them for you, but it was her I touched." Mrs. Gereth paused; Fleda was too absorbed in her explanation to do anything but take blankly the full, cold breath of this. "They were there, and that determined her."