"I must take it on trust," the girl pursued. "And what if Mona doesn't give you up?" she added. Fleda looked very grave, weighing the whole matter. "I dare say that when she started, when she arrived, she didn't mean to 'come down.'"!

"By letting myself go?" She spoke mechanically, still more like an idiot, and felt as if her face flamed out the insincerity of her question. It was vividly back again, the vision of the real way to act upon Mrs. Gereth. This lady's movements were now rapid; she turned off from her as quickly as she had seized her, and Fleda sat down to steady herself for full responsibility. Mrs. Gereth met that allusion with a prompt firmness that made almost insolently light of any ground of complaint, and Fleda's own sense of responsibility was now so vivid that all resentments turned comparatively pale. She had no heart to produce a grievance; she could only, left as she was with the little mystery on her hands, produce, after a moment, a question. "How then do you come to know that your son has ever thought—"

CHAPTER III "The whole thing has indeed been wretched, and I can easily conceive its effect upon her," Fleda said. Fleda scarcely heard his words; something new had suddenly come into her mind. "When you went to Waterbath after seeing me," she asked, "did you tell her all about that?"