This was a transaction that Fleda, after a moment, had to give up trying to represent to herself. "If she won't do that—?" she went on. She met his eyes with all the tenderness she had not yet uttered, and she had not known till this moment how great was the accumulation. "Perhaps, after all," she risked, "there may be even in a stone still some little help for you."!

"Then you think I ought to have told her?" The ring of his question made his anger at Mona almost resemble for a minute an anger at Fleda; and this resemblance in turn caused our young lady to observe how handsome he looked when he spoke, for the first time in her hearing, with that degree of heat, and used, also for the first time, such a term as "perpetrated." In addition, his challenge rendered still more vivid to her the mere flimsiness of her own aid. "Yes, you've been perfect," she said. "You've had a most difficult part. You've had to show tact and patience, as well as firmness, with your mother, and you've strikingly shown them. It's I who, quite unintentionally, have deceived you. I haven't helped you at all to your remedy."

"Didn't you ask?" Mrs. Gereth spoke as if she might have said, "What then were you doing all the while?" "In my name. I noticed a place at the corner." "If he 'shouldn't be' there!" Mrs. Gereth ejaculated. "Heaven help us, how you assume it!"