Fleda appeared to consider: she appreciated her visitor's magnanimous use of the plural. "Mona won't die," she replied. "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Mrs. Gereth broke out with a change of note that showed how deep a passion underlay everything she had said. The poor woman, catching her companion's hand, however, the next moment, as if to retract something of this harshness, spoke more patiently. "Don't you understand, Fleda, how immensely, how devotedly, I've trusted you?" Her tone was indeed a supplication.!

"Of course you know by this time that your mother's very sharp," said Fleda. "You didn't know I was here?"

CHAPTER XI "Did he seem very angry?" "She can't have gone back," Fleda declared. "Mona would have written on the spot."