said Helen reasonably.

'Well,' said Aunt Grizel, 'the main point isn't, of course, what the
people who know of your engagement will think--we don't mind that. What
we want to decide on is what we think ourselves. I keep my own counsel,
for I know you'd rather I did, and you keep yours. But what about this
money? He writes to me that he wants me to take over from him quite a
little fortune, so that when I die I can leave you about a thousand a
year. He has thought it out; it isn't too much and it isn't too little.
He is altogether a remarkable man; his tact never fails him. Of course
it's nothing compared with what he wanted to do for you; but at the same
time it's so much that, to put it brutally, you get for nothing the
safety I wanted you to marry him to get.'

Helen's delicate and weary head now turned on its pillow to look at Aunt
Grizel. They looked at each other for some time in silence, and in the
silence they took counsel together. After the interchange Helen could
say, smiling a little, 'We mustn't put it brutally; that is the one
thing we must never do. Not only for his sake,' she wanted Aunt Grizel
to see it clearly, 'but for mine.'

'How shall we put it, then? It's hardly a possible thing to accept, yet,
if he hadn't believed you would let him make you safe, would he have
gone back to Miss Jakes? One sees his point.'

'We mustn't put it brutally, because it isn't true,' said Helen,
ignoring this last inference. 'I couldn't let you take it for me unless
I cared very much for him; and I care so much that I can't take it.'

Aunt Grizel was silent for another moment. 'I see: it's because it's all
you can do for him now.'

'All that he can do for me, now,' Helen just corrected her.

'Wasn't it all he ever could do, and more? He makes you safe--of course
it's not what I wanted for you, but it's part of it--he makes you safe
and he removes himself.'

Aunt Grizel saw the truth so clearly that Helen could allow her to seem
brutal. 'It's only because we could both do a good deal for each other
that doing this is possible,' she said.

She then roused herself to pour out her coffee and butter her toast, and
Miss Buchanan sat in silence beside her, tapping Franklin Winslow Kane's
letter on her palm from time to time. And at last she brought out her
final decision. 'When I write to him and tell him that I accept, I shall
tell him too, that I'm sorry.'

'Sorry? For what?' Helen did not quite follow her.

'Th