"An immense little fib?" Fleda felt weak; she was glad of the support of her seat. Fleda submitted like a sick animal: she would submit to everything now. "Then what further passed?"!

"I must take it on trust," the girl pursued. "And what if Mona doesn't give you up?" she added. The man hesitated. "What can you call it, miss, if it ain't really saved?"

"And his great bright passion for another person went in. Your explanation would doubtless be perfection if he didn't love you." "Why, rather, Miss Vetch!" Owen declared. "I've done every blessed thing she wished. I rushed down to Ricks, as you saw, with fire and sword, and the day after that I went to see her at Waterbath." At this point he checked himself, though it was just the point at which her interest deepened. A different look had come into his face as he put down his empty teacup. "But why should I tell you such things, for any good it does me? I gather that you've no suggestion to make me now except that I shall request my solicitor to act. Shall I request him to act?" Mrs. Brigstock received this question as if it were not to be unguardedly answered; upon which Owen intervened with pale irrelevance: "I wrote to Mona this morning of Miss Vetch's being in town; but of course the letter hadn't arrived when you left home."