reproached her with profitable devotions; so far as they
existed he consciously profited by them. Mrs. Gereth gave her up as
heroically as if she had been a great bargain, and Fleda knew that she
wouldn't at present miss any visit of Owen's, for Owen was shooting at
Waterbath. Owen shooting was Owen lost, and there was scant sport at
Poynton.

The first news she had from Mrs. Gereth was news of that lady's having
accomplished, in form at least, her migration. The letter was dated from
Ricks, to which place she had been transported by an impulse apparently
as sudden as the inspiration she had obeyed before. "Yes, I've literally
come," she wrote, "with a bandbox and a kitchen-maid; I've crossed the
Rubicon, I've taken possession. It has been like plumping into cold
water: I saw the only thing was to do it, not to stand shivering. I
shall have warmed the place a little by simply being here for a week;
when I come back the ice will have been broken. I didn't write to you to
meet me on my way through town, because I know how busy you are and
because, besides, I'm too savage and odious to be fit company even for
you. You'd say I really go too far, and there's no doubt whatever I do.
I'm here, at any rate, just to look round once more, to see that certain
things are done before I enter in force. I shall probably be at Poynton
all next week. There's more room than I quite measured the other day,
and a rather good set of old Worcester. But what are space and time,
what's even old Worcester, to your wretched and affectionate A. G.?"

The day after Fleda received this letter she had occasion to go into a
big shop in Oxford Street--a journey that she achieved circuitously,
first on foot and then by the aid of two omnibuses. The second of these
vehicles put her down on the side of the street opposite her shop, and
while, on the curbstone, she humbly waited, with a parcel, an umbrella,
and a tucked-up frock, to cross in security, she became aware that,
close beside her, a hansom had pulled up short, in obedience to the
brandished stick of a demonstrative occupant. This occupant was Owen
Gereth, who had caught sight of her as he rattled along and who, with an
exhibition of white teeth that, from under the hood of the cab, had
almost flashed through the fog, now alighted to ask her if he couldn't
give her a lift. On finding that her destination was only over the way
he dismissed his vehicle and joined her, not only piloting her to the