"I see," said Fleda. "Well, I dare say our conferences have looked very odd." CHAPTER XI!

"No, nor love me," said Owen. "Of course, you know, she says she loves me." "For you, of course—to entreat me to give you up. She thinks me awfully designing—that I've taken some sort of possession of you."

It was part of the great rupture and an effect of Mrs. Gereth's character that up to this moment she had been completely and haughtily indifferent to that detail. Now, however, she had a visible reason for being clear about it. She bethought herself and she broke out—"Isn't the day past?" Then, stopping short, she added: "Upon my word, they must have put it off!" As Fleda made no answer to this she sharply went on: "Have they put it off?" "I asked for you," he said when she stood there, "because I heard from the flyman who drove me from the station to the inn that he had brought you here yesterday. We had some talk, and he mentioned it." Something in this touched the girl so that for a moment she could not trust herself to speak. "You're an honest man," she said at last. She had gone to the door and opened it. "Good-bye."