She came out on the platform: everywhere she met the smoke. She covered her face with her hands. "I'll go back." "Does Mona?"!

"Where did you separate?" Fleda asked. "Marry him if he were to ask me? Most distinctly not!"

"No, I won't receive him here with you. Only where I received him last—only there again." She showed her companion that as to that she was firm. "Oh dear, yes!" Owen repeated. "They may not have known of my leaving." Fleda wondered afresh; it struck her as scarcely supposable that some sign shouldn't have flashed from Poynton to London. If the storm was taking this term of silence to gather, even in Mona's breast, it would probably discharge itself in some startling form. The great hush of every one concerned was strange; but when she pressed Mrs. Gereth for some explanation of it, that lady only replied, with her brave irony: "Oh, I took their breath away!" She had no illusions, however; she was still prepared to fight. What indeed was her spoliation of Poynton but the first engagement of a campaign?