This 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 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.”