"So as not to aggravate Mona, naturally. We've had a narrow course to steer, but thank God we're at last in the open!" Fleda hesitated. "Why do you need saving, when you announced to me just now that you're a free man?"!

"I want you, inexpressibly, to have, as a remembrance, something of mine—something of real value. Something from Poynton is what I mean and what I should prefer. You know everything there, and far better than I what's best and what isn't. There are a lot of differences, but aren't some of the smaller things the most remarkable? I mean for judges, and for what they'd bring. What I want you to take from me, and to choose for yourself, is the thing in the whole house that's most beautiful and precious. I mean the 'gem of the collection,' don't you know? If it happens to be of such a sort that you can take immediate possession of it—carry it right away with you—so much the better. You're to have it on the spot, whatever it is. I humbly beg of you to go down there and see. The people have complete instructions: they'll act for you in every possible way and put the whole place at your service. There's a thing mamma used to call the Maltese cross and that I think I've heard her say is very wonderful. Is that the gem of the collection? Perhaps you would take it, or anything equally convenient. Only I do want you awfully to let it be the very pick of the place. Let me feel that I can trust you for this. You won't refuse if you will think a little what it must be that makes me ask." "I'm glad, then, it didn't arrive. Shouldn't you like him to go?" Fleda asked.

"Oh, I thought I remembered that at Poynton you had told me a day, and that it was near at hand." At this she knew. "Poynton's on fire?" "Please open the house-door," said Fleda.