Finally, after an interval, the girl exclaimed: "But the mere fatigue of it, the exhaustion of such a feat! I drag you to and fro here while you must be ready to drop." "I made a point of letting Mona know that I should be here, don't you see? That's exactly what I wrote her this morning."!

"It wasn't with me you were in love, my duck." Then Mrs. Gereth added: "I'll go and tell him." "Have I kept you off to-day?" Fleda sadly shook her head, raising her arms a little and dropping them.

"Oh no, not everything; I saw how little I could get into this scrap of a house. I only brought away what I required." "Deuce take you, no! To what we don't, you know, by your wish, ever talk about." The girl hesitated an instant; she was conscious that she must choose between two risks. She had had a secret and the secret was gone. Owen had one, which was still unbruised, and the greater risk now was that his mother should lay her formidable hand upon it. All Fleda's tenderness for him moved her to protect it; so she faced the smaller peril. "Their delay," she brought herself to reply, "may perhaps be Mona's doing. I mean because he has lost her the things."