"I haven't the least idea," Fleda repeated. "So much that they're all, and that she can let everything else absolutely depend upon them?"!

"And leave his house as bare as your hand? There's nothing in it that isn't precious." "That's your great feeling about him," Fleda said; "but how, after what has happened, can it be his about you?"

"I said to her that her question revealed a total misconception of the nature of my present relations with my son. I said to her that I had no relations with him at all, and that nothing had passed between us for months. I said to her that my hands were spotlessly clean of any attempt to make him make up to you. I said to her that I had taken from Poynton what I had a right to take, but had done nothing else in the world. I was determined that if I had bit my tongue off to oblige you I would at least have the righteousness that my sacrifice gave me." "You know better than I," said Fleda, speaking with high extravagance. "Well, was it I, pray, who perpetrated the wrong? Ain't I doing what I can to get the thing arranged?"