Fleda pondered a moment. "If she did go back that night you would have heard from Waterbath by this time." "Oh, I heard her!" said Owen. "But plead with you for what?"!

"Well, if she calls you names." "So as not to aggravate Mona?" Fleda suggested.

She checked him with a gesture. "Don't tell me what she did!" She had colored up to her eyes, where, as with the effect of a blow in the face, she quickly felt the tears gathering. It was a sudden drop in her great flight, a shock to her attempt to watch over what Mona was entitled to. While she had been straining her very soul in this attempt, the object of her magnanimity had been pronouncing her "not honest." She took it all in, however, and after an instant was able to speak with a smile. She would not have been surprised to learn, indeed, that her smile was strange. "You had said a while ago that your mother and I quarreled about you. It's much more true that you and Mona have quarreled about me." "She was there, day before yesterday, only for a few hours. She met him in London and went down to see the things." Mrs. Gereth stood there in all the glory of a great stroke. "I've settled you." She filled the room, to Fleda's scared vision, with the glare of her magnificence. "I've sent everything back."