f them. He didn't seem to
bear the remotest resemblance to the original Frederick. He didn't
seem to have the least need of any of the things he used to say were so
important and beautiful--love, home, complete communion of thoughts,
complete immersion in each other's interests. After those early
painful attempts to hold him up to the point from which they had hand
in hand so splendidly started, attempts in which she herself had got
terribly hurt and the Frederick she supposed she had married was
mangled out of recognition, she hung him up finally by her bedside as
the chief subject of her prayers, and left him, except for those,
entirely to God. She had loved Frederick too deeply to be able now to
do anything but pray for him. He had no idea that he never went out of
the house without her blessing going with him too, hovering, like a
little echo of finished love, round that once dear head. She didn't
dare think of him as he used to be, as he had seemed to her to be in
those marvelous first days of their love-making, of their marriage.
Her child had died; she had nothing, nobody of her own to lavish
herself on. The poor became her children, and God the object of her
love. What could be happier than such a life, she sometimes asked
herself; but her face, and particularly her eyes, continued sad.

"Perhaps when we're old . . . perhaps when we are both quite old . . ."
she would think wistfully.

Chapter 3

The owner of the mediaeval castle was an Englishman, a Mr.
Briggs, who was in London at the moment and wrote that it had beds
enough for eight people, exclusive of servants, three sitting-rooms,
battlements, dungeons, and electric light. The rent was L60 for the
month, the servants' wages were extra, and he wanted references--he
wanted assurances that the second half of his rent would be paid, the
first half being paid in advance, and he wanted assurances of
respectability from a solicitor, or a doctor, or a clergyman. He was
very polite in his letter, explaining that his desire for references
was what was usual and should be regarded as a mere formality.

Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins had not thought of references,
and they had not dreamed a rent could be so high. In their minds had
floated sums like three guineas a week; or less, seeing that the place
was small and old.

Sixty pounds for a single month.

It staggered them.

Before Mrs. Arbuthnot's eyes rose up boots: endless vistas, all