Fleda hesitated; she had not foreseen that so simple an inquiry could disconcert her. "I'm afraid I don't know." "I couldn't stand the way she treated you, and that was what I had to say to her," Owen returned.!

"I want to take her in the right way, don't you know?—treat her as if I gave her more than just an hour or two." CHAPTER XVII

"Merciful powers, how you worship him!" Mrs. Gereth wonderingly moaned. It was, for Fleda, the shake that made the cup overflow. She had a pause, that of the child who takes time to know that he responds to an accident with pain; then, dropping again on the sofa, she broke into tears. They were beyond control, they came in long sobs, which for a moment Mrs. Gereth, almost with an air of indifference, stood hearing and watching. At last Mrs. Gereth too sank down again. Mrs. Gereth soundlessly, wearily wept. "I?—" The inquiry seemed to have moved him to stupefaction. "Can you ask me that question when I only wanted to please you? Didn't you seem to show me, in your wonderful way, that that was exactly how? I didn't break off just on purpose to leave it to her. I didn't break off so that there shouldn't be a thing to be said against me." "Why not to Waterbath at once?" Fleda asked.