The exact right words, she presently discovered, after trying
various ones about living for others, and prayer, and the peace to be
found in placing oneself unreservedly in God's hands--to meet all these
words Mrs. Wilkins had other words, incoherent and yet, for the moment
at least, till one had had more time, difficult to answer--the exact
right words were a suggestion that it would do no harm to answer the
advertisement. Non-committal. Mere inquiry. And what disturbed Mrs.
Arbuthnot about this suggestion was that she did not make it solely to
comfort Mrs. Wilkins; she made it because of her own strange longing
for the mediaeval castle.
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.
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