"Do you see how you have got me into trouble, Elfie?" said he, stopping before them.
Fleda looked wonderingly, and Mrs. Carleton exclaimed, "What trouble?"
"Elfie," said he, without immediately answering his mother, "what would your conscience do with two promises both of which cannot be kept?"
"What such promises have you made?" said Mrs Carleton eagerly.
"Let me hear first what Fleda says to my question."
"Why," said Fleda, looking a little bewildered,--"I would keep the right one."
"Not the one first made?" said he smiling.
"No," said Fleda,--"not unless it was the right one."
"But don't you think one ought to keep one's word, in any event?"
"I don't think anything can make it right to do wrong," Fleda said gravely, and not without a secret trembling consciousness to what point she was speaking.