Fleda submitted like a sick animal: she would submit to everything now. "Then what further passed?" "Then, in God's name, what must I do?"!

"I can't be sure, but it's my belief." Fleda winced at what he knew; she made a wild gesture which seemed to whirl it out of the room. The mere allusion was like another embrace. "You know nothing—and you must go and wait! You mustn't break down at this point."

"Well, at any rate, you don't call her names." Fleda wondered. "And did you remember the little letter that, with your hands tied, you still succeeded in writing to him?" Our young lady's spirit was strangely divided; she had a tenderness for Owen which she deeply concealed, yet it left her occasion to marvel at the way a man was made who could care in any relation for a creature like Mona Brigstock when he had known in any relation a creature like Adela Gereth. With such a mother to give him the pitch, how could he take it so low? She wondered that she didn't despise him for this, but there was something that kept her from it. If there had been nothing else it would have sufficed that she really found herself from this moment the medium of communication with him.