Mrs. Gereth stared. "Do you mean he's at Waterbath? Well, that's your own affair. I can bear it if you can." "The strain of what?"!

"That's horrible!" said Fleda, looking at him in woe. Fleda marveled: her companion had in an instant become young again. "Away from Mona? How in the world—?"

This attempt at gayety was futile; the silence with which, for a minute, her adversary greeted her troubled plea brought home to her afresh that she was on the bare defensive. "Is it a part of his kindness never to come near you?" Mrs. Gereth inquired at last. "Is it a part of his kindness to leave you without an inkling of where he is?" She rose again from where Fleda had kept her down; she seemed to tower there in the majesty of her gathered wrong. "Is it a part of his kindness that, after I've toiled as I've done for six days, and with my own weak hands, which I haven't spared, to denude myself, in your interest, to that point that I've nothing left, as I may say, but what I have on my back—is it a part of his kindness that you're not even able to produce him for me?" "I see you think she may refuse to discuss it at all," said Owen. This was a transaction that Fleda, after a moment, had to give up trying to represent to herself. "If she won't do that—?" she went on.