question is if it was worse than yours."

"Mine?" Fleda looked vague.

"Precisely. Yours."

At this our young lady smiled. "Yes, because it was a disappointment.
She had been so sure."

"I see. And you were never sure."

"Never. Besides, I'm happy," said Fleda.

Mrs. Gereth met her eyes awhile. "Goose!" she quietly remarked as she
turned away. There was a curtness in it; nevertheless it represented a
considerable part of the basis of their new life.

On the 18th The Morning Post had at last its clear message, a brief
account of the marriage, from the residence of the bride's mother, of
Mr. Owen Gereth of Poynton Park to Miss Mona Brigstock of Waterbath.
There were two ecclesiastics and six bridesmaids and, as Mrs. Gereth
subsequently said, a hundred frumps, as well as a special train from
town: the scale of the affair sufficiently showed that the preparations
had been complete for weeks. The happy pair were described as having
taken their departure for Mr. Gereth's own seat, famous for its unique
collection of artistic curiosities. The newspapers and letters, the
fruits of the first London post, had been brought to the mistress of
Ricks in the garden; and she lingered there alone a long time after
receiving them. Fleda kept at a distance; she knew what must have
happened, for from one of the windows she saw her rigid in a chair, her
eyes strange and fixed, the newspaper open on the ground and the letters
untouched in her lap. Before the morning's end she had disappeared, and
the rest of that day she remained in her room: it recalled to Fleda, who
had picked up the newspaper, the day, months before, on which Owen had
come down to Poynton to make his engagement known. The hush of the house
was at least the same, and the girl's own waiting, her soft wandering,
through the hours: there was a difference indeed sufficiently great, of
which her companion's absence might in some degree have represented a
considerate recognition. That was at any rate the meaning Fleda,
devoutly glad to be alone, attached to her opportunity. Mrs. Gereth's
sole allusion, the next day, to the subject of their thoughts, has
already been mentioned: it was a dazzled glance at the fact that Mona's
quiet pace had really never slackened.

Fleda fully assented. "I said of our disembodied friend here that she
had suffered in proportion as she had been sure. But that's not always a
source of suffering. It's Mona who must have been sure!"

"She w