She had paused an instant, and Mrs. Gereth took her up. "Well, if she had?" "To give them up?" Fleda hesitated again.!

"Burning still, miss. Ain't it quite too dreadful? Took early this morning—the whole place is up there." "He answered it sufficiently by rushing off on the spot to see you."

"Do you mean to say you'll have a regular kick-up with her?" Fleda was silent; the worst of it all was that there was something unspoken between them. Neither of them dared to utter it, but the influence of it was in the girl's tone when she returned at last, with great gentleness: "Don't be harsh to me—I'm very unhappy." The words produced a visible impression on Mrs. Gereth, who held her face averted and sent off through the window a gaze that kept pace with the long caravan of her treasures. Fleda knew she was watching it wind up the avenue of Poynton—Fleda participated indeed fully in the vision; so that after a little the most consoling thing seemed to her to add: "I don't see why in the world you take so for granted that he's, as you say, 'lost.'" "Wouldn't it perhaps after all be better," she asked, "before doing this, to see if we can make his whereabouts certain?"