s. Gereth.

"Read it?"

"Yes, Mona will. She'll open it under the pretext of having it repeated;
and then she'll probably do nothing. She'll keep it as a proof of your
immodesty."

"What of that?" asked Fleda.

"You don't mind her seeing it?"

Rather musingly and absently Fleda shook her head. "I don't mind
anything."

"Well, then, that's all right," said Mrs. Gereth as if she had only
wanted to feel that she had been irreproachably considerate. After this
she was gentler still, but she had another point to clear up. "Why have
you given, for a reply, your sister's address?"

"Because if he _does_ come to me he must come to me there. If that
telegram goes," said Fleda, "I return to Maggie's to-night."

Mrs. Gereth seemed to wonder at this. "You won't receive him here with
me?"

"No, I won't receive him here with you. Only where I received him
last--only there again." She showed her companion that as to that she
was firm.

But Mrs. Gereth had obviously now had some practice in following queer
movements prompted by queer feelings. She resigned herself, though she
fingered the paper a moment longer. She appeared to hesitate; then she
brought out: "You couldn't then, if I release you, make your message a
little stronger?"

Fleda gave her a faint smile. "He'll come if he can."

Mrs. Gereth met fully what this conveyed; with decision she pushed in
the telegram. But she laid her hand quickly upon another form and with
still greater decision wrote another message. "From _me_, this," she
said to Fleda when she had finished: "to catch him possibly at Poynton.
Will you read it?"

Fleda turned away. "Thank you."

"It's stronger than yours."

"I don't care," said Fleda, moving to the door. Mrs. Gereth, having paid
for the second missive, rejoined her, and they drove together to Owen's
club, where the elder lady alone got out. Fleda, from the hansom,
watched through the glass doors her brief conversation with the
hall-porter and then met in silence her return with the news that he had
not seen Owen for a fortnight and was keeping his letters till called
for. These had been the last orders; there were a dozen letters lying
there. He had no more information to give, but they would see what they
could find at Colonel Gereth's. To any connection with this inquiry,
however, Fleda now roused herself to object, and her friend had indeed
to recognize that on second thoughts it couldn't be quite to the taste
of either of