"Wouldn't it perhaps after all be better," she asked, "before doing this, to see if we can make his whereabouts certain?" CHAPTER VI!

Fleda moved to the door and opened it. "I'm not prepared to say. You must have patience and see." At this, opening her eyes, Mrs. Gereth sprang straight up. "Get him away from her!"

"In as few days as possible. That's all that's left for me now." Fleda's heart, at this, gave a bound; she wondered to what particular difference in Mrs. Gereth's situation as last known to her it was an allusion. "I've made my plan," her friend continued: "I go for at least a year. We shall go straight to Florence; we can manage there. I of course don't look to you, however," she added, "to stay with me all that time. That will require to be settled. Owen will have to join us as soon as possible; he may not be quite ready to get off with us. But I'm convinced it's quite the right thing to go. It will make a good change; it will put in a decent interval." Fleda hesitated; she had not quite had a definite idea. "Well—he'll give them up." All the girl's effort tended for the time to a single aim—that of taking the thing with outward detachment, speaking of it as having happened to Owen and to his mother and not in any degree to herself. Something at least of this was in the encouraging way she said: "Yesterday morning?"