s was very disturbing. There she was, accustomed to direct,
to lead, to advise, to support--except Frederick; she long since had
learned to leave Frederick to God--being led herself, being influenced
and thrown off her feet, by just an advertisement, by just an
incoherent stranger. It was indeed disturbing. She failed to
understand her sudden longing for what was, after all, self-indulgence,
when for years no such desire had entered her heart.

"There's no harm in simply asking," she said in a low voice, as
if the vicar and the Savings Bank and all her waiting and dependent
poor were listening and condemning.

"It isn't as if it committed us to anything," said Mrs. Wilkins,
also in a low voice, but her voice shook.

They got up simultaneously--Mrs. Arbuthnot had a sensation of surprise
that Mrs. Wilkins should be so tall--and went to a writing-table, and
Mrs. Arbuthnot wrote to Z, Box 1000, The Times, for particulars. She
asked for all particulars, but the only one they really wanted was the
one about the rent. They both felt that it was Mrs. Arbuthnot who
ought to write the letter and do the business part. Not only was she
used to organizing and being practical, but she also was older, and
certainly calmer; and she herself had no doubt too that she was wiser.
Neither had Mrs. Wilkins any doubt of this; the very way Mrs. Arbuthnot
parted her hair suggested a great calm that could only proceed from
wisdom.

But if she was wiser, older and calmer, Mrs. Arbuthnot's new
friend nevertheless seemed to her to be the one who impelled.
Incoherent, she yet impelled. She appeared to have, apart from her
need of help, an upsetting kind of character. She had a curious
infectiousness. She led one on. And the way her unsteady mind leaped
at conclusions--wrong ones, of course; witness the one that she, Mrs.
Arbuthnot, was miserable--the way she leaped at conclusions was
disconcerting.

Whatever she was, however, and whatever her unsteadiness, Mrs.
Arbuthnot found herself sharing her excitement and her longing; and
when the letter had been posted in the letter-box in the hall and
actually was beyond getting back again, both she and Mrs. Wilkins felt
the same sense of guilt.

"It only shows," said Mrs. Wilkins in a whisper, as they turned
away from the letter-box, "how immaculately good we've been all our
lives. The very first time we do anything our husbands don't know
about we feel guilty."

"I'm afraid I can't say