"I don't want to see any letter," said Fleda. "You'll miss your train." "Well, then, if he doesn't care!"—Fleda exclaimed, with some impetuosity; stopping short, however, before she completed her sentence.!

"I can't tell you what they were, but they were powerful. She knew how," said Mrs. Gereth. Fleda marveled: her companion had in an instant become young again. "Away from Mona? How in the world—?"

"I see in it simply what must be, if you've a single spark of pity. Where on earth was the double game, when you've behaved like such a saint? You've been beautiful, you've been exquisite, and all our trouble is over." "Fearfully?" broke from the girl. Somehow, at the word, she was startled. "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."