I've been immaculately good," gently
protested Mrs. Arbuthnot, a little uncomfortable at this fresh example
of successful leaping at conclusions, for she had not said a word about
her feeling of guilt.

"Oh, but I'm sure you have--I see you being good--and that's why
you're not happy."

"She shouldn't say things like that," thought Mrs. Arbuthnot. "I
must try and help her not to."

Aloud she said gravely, "I don't know why you insist that I'm not
happy. When you know me better I think you'll find that I am. And I'm
sure you don't mean really that goodness, if one could attain it, makes
one unhappy."

"Yes, I do," said Mrs. Wilkins. "Our sort of goodness does. We
have attained it, and we are unhappy. There are miserable sorts of
goodness and happy sorts--the sort we'll have at the mediaeval castle,
for instance, is the happy sort."

"That is, supposing we go there," said Mrs. Arbuthnot
restrainingly. She felt that Mrs. Wilkins needed holding on to.
"After all, we've only written just to ask. Anybody may do that. I
think it quite likely we shall find the conditions impossible, and even
if they were not, probably by to-morrow we shall not want to go."

"I see us there," was Mrs. Wilkins's answer to that.

All this was very unbalancing. Mrs. Arbuthnot, as she presently
splashed though the dripping streets on her way to a meeting she was to
speak at, was in an unusually disturbed condition of mind. She had,
she hoped, shown herself very calm to Mrs. Wilkins, very practical and
sober, concealing her own excitement. But she was really
extraordinarily moved, and she felt happy, and she felt guilty, and she
felt afraid, and she had all the feelings, though this she did not
know, of a woman who was come away from a secret meeting with her
lover. That, indeed, was what she looked like when she arrived late on
her platform; she, the open-browed, looked almost furtive as her eyes
fell on the staring wooden faces waiting to hear her try and persuade
them to contribute to the alleviation of the urgent needs of the
Hampstead poor, each one convinced that they needed contributions
themselves. She looked as though she were hiding something
discreditable but delightful. Certainly her customary clear expression
of candor was not there, and its place was taken by a kind of
suppressed and frightened pleasedness, which would have led a more
worldly-minded audience to the instant conviction of recent and
probably impas