"And do you say you love her?" Fleda, meanwhile, had had time to make her reflections, which were moreover the continued throb of those that had occupied the interval between Owen's departure and his mother's return. If she should now repeat his words, this wouldn't at all play the game of her definite vow; it would only play the game of her little gagged and blinded desire. She could calculate well enough the effect of telling Mrs. Gereth how she had had it from Owen's troubled lips that Mona was only waiting for the restitution and would do nothing without it. The thing was to obtain the restitution without imparting that knowledge. The only way, also, not to impart it was not to tell any truth at all about it; and the only way to meet this last condition was to reply to her companion, as she presently did: "He told me nothing whatever: he didn't touch on the subject."!

"About the contents of the house. Aren't you looking after them for him?" "You should have told her, you know, that I had seen you in town only that one time," Fleda observed.

"The honor and good name of a man you hate?" CHAPTER XX Fleda thought an instant. "You mean makes her hesitate to keep you—not hesitate to renounce you?"