CHAPTER IX "I remembered how you had tied my hands about saying a word to Owen."!

"I knew what she wanted to say to me: that's why I was determined to get her off. I knew I shouldn't like it, but I was perfectly prepared," said Owen. "She brought it out as soon as we got round the corner; she asked me point-blank if I was in love with you." "It wasn't with me you were in love, my duck." Then Mrs. Gereth added: "I'll go and tell him."

"Oh yes, a lot of things. But you wouldn't know the place, all the same." He looked about the room with his discolored, swindled face, which deepened Fleda's compassion for him, conjuring away any smile at so candid an image of the dupe. "You'd know this one soon enough, wouldn't you? These are just the things she ought to have left. Is the whole house full of them?" Owen was baffled but a few seconds; he had thought of everything. "Why, that's just where you come in." "I believe you will, if you look at her like that!"