"Isn't it there, when he's in town, that he has a room? He has at present no other London address," Fleda said: "it's there one writes to him." Mrs. Gereth was silent a moment; then "Nonsense!" she sharply replied.!

"That would have been the sane, sound, immediate course to adopt. With a grain of gumption you'd both instantly have felt it. I should have found a way to take you, you know, if I'd been what Owen's supposed to be. I should have got the business over first; the rest could come when you liked! Good God, girl, your place was to stand before me as a woman honestly married. One doesn't know what one has hold of in touching you, and you must excuse my saying that you're literally unpleasant to me to meet as you are. Then at least we could have talked, and Owen, if he had the ghost of a sense of humor, could have snapped his fingers at your refinements." "We've already talked a long time," smiled Fleda.

"Why, letting me tell her a dozen things she can have." "No, miss; and I think she has left the garden. She has gone up the back road." In other words, they had the whole place to themselves. It would have been a pleasure, in a different mood, to converse with that parlor-maid. Fleda moved to the door and opened it. "I'm not prepared to say. You must have patience and see."