"If we have lost?" Fleda repeated as she paused again. "You must settle that with her. You mustn't break faith. Anything is better than that. You must at any rate be utterly sure. She must love you—how can she help it? I wouldn't give you up!" said Fleda. She spoke in broken bits, panting out her words. "The great thing is to keep faith. Where is a man if he doesn't? If he doesn't he may be so cruel. So cruel, so cruel, so cruel!" Fleda repeated. "I couldn't have a hand in that, you know: that's my position—that's mine. You offered her marriage: it's a tremendous thing for her." Then looking at him another moment, "I wouldn't give you up!" she said again. He still had hold of her arm; she took in his blank alarm. With a quick dip of her face she reached his hand with her lips, pressing them to the back of it with a force that doubled the force of her words. "Never, never, never!" she cried; and before he could succeed in seizing her she had turned and, scrambling up the stairs, got away from him even faster than she had got away from him at Ricks.!

"The one I've already made so clear to you: my having it in black and white, as you may say, from her that she freely gives him up." "And leave his house as bare as your hand? There's nothing in it that isn't precious."

"I must in common decency let him know that I've talked of the matter with you," she said to her hostess that evening. "What answer do you wish me to write to him?" "If he shouldn't be there," Fleda interrupted, "there will be no harm done." "Do you suggest that I shall propose to him to come down here again?" she presently inquired.