take
everything--how can I stay here without a sense that I'm backing you up
in your cruelty and participating in your ill-gotten gains?" Fleda was
determined that if she had the chill of her exposed and investigated
state she would also have the convenience of it, and that if Mrs. Gereth
popped in and out of the chamber of her soul she would at least return
the freedom. "I shall quite hate, you know, in a day or two, every
object that surrounds you--become blind to all the beauty and rarity
that I formerly delighted in. Don't think me harsh; there's no use in my
not being frank now. If I leave you, everything's at an end."

Mrs. Gereth, however, was imperturbable: Fleda had to recognize that her
advantage had become too real. "It's too beautiful, the way you care for
him; it's music in my ears. Nothing else but such a passion could make
you say such things; that's the way I should have been too, my dear. Why
didn't you tell me sooner? I'd have gone right in for you; I never would
have moved a candlestick. Don't stay with me if it torments you; don't,
if you suffer, be where you see the old rubbish. Go up to town--go back
for a little to your father's. It need be only for a little; two or
three weeks will see us through. Your father will take you and be glad,
if you only will make him understand what it's a question of--of your
getting yourself off his hands forever. _I_'ll make him understand, you
know, if you feel shy. I'd take you up myself, I'd go with you, to spare
your being bored; we'd put up at an hotel and we might amuse ourselves a
bit. We haven't had much pleasure since we met, have we? But of course
that wouldn't suit our book. I should be a bugaboo to Owen--I should be
fatally in the way. Your chance is there--your chance is to be alone;
for God's sake, use it to the right end. If you're in want of money I've
a little I can give you. But I ask no questions--not a question as small
as your shoe!"

She asked no questions, but she took the most extraordinary things for
granted. Fleda felt this still more at the end of a couple of days. On
the second of these our young lady wrote to Owen; her emotion had to a
certain degree cleared itself--there was something she could say
briefly. If she had given everything to Mrs. Gereth and as yet got
nothing, so she had on the other hand quickly reacted--it took but a
night--against the discouragement of her first check. Her desire to
serve him was too passionate, the se