"Mine have not been quite so bad as that," Fleda desperately smiled. Then she added: "His silence, her silence, our hearing nothing at all—what are these but the very things on which, at Poynton and at Ricks, you rested your assurance that everything is at an end between them?" "But twice?" Mrs. Gereth still smiled.!

"He doesn't dream I've ever thought of him," said Fleda. "Why should he, if you didn't?" "For you, of course—to entreat me to give you up. She thinks me awfully designing—that I've taken some sort of possession of you."

"What I mean to say is, if she's angry at your backing me up—what will you do then? She can't possibly like it, you know." She couldn't, however, succeed for so very many minutes in deferring her exposure. "Why didn't you wait, dearest? Ah, why didn't you wait?"—if that inconsequent appeal kept rising to her lips to be cut short before it was spoken, this was only because at first the humility of gratitude helped her to gain time, enabled her to present herself very honestly as too overcome to be clear. She kissed her companion's hands, she did homage at her feet, she murmured soft snatches of praise, and yet in the midst of it all was conscious that what she really showed most was the wan despair at her heart. She saw Mrs. Gereth's glimpse of this despair suddenly widen, heard the quick chill of her voice pierce through the false courage of endearments. "Do you mean to tell me at such an hour as this that you've really lost him?" "I didn't ask very much," said her companion. "He has been gone some time. The great thing seemed to be to understand clearly that he wouldn't be content with anything less than what he mentioned."