een
having the benefit. It was a constant feature of their relation that
this lady could make Fleda blench a little, and that the effect
proceeded from the intense pressure of her confidence. If the confidence
had been heavy even when the girl, in the early flush of devotion, had
been able to feel herself most responsive, it drew her heart into her
mouth now that she had reserves and conditions, now that she couldn't
simplify with the same bold hand as her protectress. In the very
brightening of the tired look, and at the moment of their embrace, Fleda
felt on her shoulders the return of the load, so that her spirit frankly
quailed as she asked herself what she had brought up from her trusted
seclusion to support it. Mrs. Gereth's free manner always made a joke of
weakness, and there was in such a welcome a richness, a kind of familiar
nobleness, that suggested shame to a harried conscience. Something had
happened, she could see, and she could also see, in the bravery that
seemed to announce it had changed everything, a formidable assumption
that what had happened was what a healthy young woman must like. The
absence of luggage had made this young woman feel meagre even before her
companion, taking in the bareness at a second glance, exclaimed upon it
and roundly rebuked her. Of course she had expected her to stay.

Fleda thought best to show bravery too, and to show it from the first.
"What you expected, dear Mrs. Gereth, is exactly what I came up to
ascertain. It struck me as right to do that first. I mean to ascertain,
without making preparations."

"Then you'll be so good as to make them on the spot!" Mrs. Gereth was
most emphatic. "You're going abroad with me."

Fleda wondered, but she also smiled. "To-night--to-morrow?"

"In as few days as possible. That's all that's left for me now." Fleda's
heart, at this, gave a bound; she wondered to what particular difference
in Mrs. Gereth's situation as last known to her it was an allusion.
"I've made my plan," her friend continued: "I go for at least a year. We
shall go straight to Florence; we can manage there. I of course don't
look to you, however," she added, "to stay with me all that time. That
will require to be settled. Owen will have to join us as soon as
possible; he may not be quite ready to get off with us. But I'm
convinced it's quite the right thing to go. It will make a good change;
it will put in a decent interval."

Fleda listened; she was deeply mysti