"She may very well not like it; but everything depends. I must see what I shall do. You mustn't worry about me." "Afraid, you mean, of the legal steps you may take?"!

"She was there, day before yesterday, only for a few hours. She met him in London and went down to see the things." "Not Mr. Gereth, I mean—nor his wife?"

"Dear, no; say that you'll go up to town and meet him." It was bettered, the broad hint; and Fleda felt this to be still more the case when, returning to the subject before they went to bed, her companion said: "I make him over to you wholly, you know—to do what you please with. Deal with him in your own clever way—I ask no questions. All I ask is that you succeed." "Do you suggest that I shall propose to him to come down here again?" she presently inquired. Owen answered with a kind of gay despair. "God knows, Miss Vetch, where or when or what my marriage is! If it isn't 'off,' it certainly, at the point things have reached, isn't on. I haven't seen Mona for ten days, and for a week I haven't heard from her. She used to write me every week, don't you know? She won't budge from Waterbath, and I haven't budged from town." Then he suddenly broke out: "If she does chuck me, will mother come round?"