"What sort of coercion?" said Mrs. Gereth. Fleda was mystified. "People surely knew at Poynton," she objected, "if, as you say, she's there."!

"That gives me a pull!" Fleda returned, smiling. "Surely it's the only proper thing for him to do."

"They may not have known of my leaving." Fleda wondered afresh; it struck her as scarcely supposable that some sign shouldn't have flashed from Poynton to London. If the storm was taking this term of silence to gather, even in Mona's breast, it would probably discharge itself in some startling form. The great hush of every one concerned was strange; but when she pressed Mrs. Gereth for some explanation of it, that lady only replied, with her brave irony: "Oh, I took their breath away!" She had no illusions, however; she was still prepared to fight. What indeed was her spoliation of Poynton but the first engagement of a campaign? "I do, then." Mrs. Gereth looked hard at the floor. "There was no obligation at the time you saw him last—when you sent him, hating her as he did, back to her." "To take means?" Fleda repeated.