‘But that’s just what he tried to do. That’s just what he thinks--oh, poor darling, I don’t know if he’s able to think now, but it’s what he <i>did</i> think he had done.’ ‘What did he think he had done?’ ‘Arranged my future as carefully as he was accustomed to arrange my present. You see, he was very fond of me----’ ‘<i>Any</i> man----’ ‘And he was obsessed by a fear that somebody might want to’--her face, to his relief, broke into amusement again--‘might want to marry me.’ ‘<i>Any</i> man----’ began Christopher again, with the utmost earnestness. ‘Oh, but listen,’ she said, making a little gesture. ‘Listen. He never thought he’d die--not for ages, anyhow. One doesn’t. So he naturally supposed that by the time he did I’d be too old for anybody to want to marry me for what’--her eyes were smiling--‘is called myself. George was rich, you see.’ ‘Yes, I’ve been imagining him rich.’ ‘So he thought he’d keep me happy and safe from being a prey to wicked men only wanting money, by making me poor.’ ‘I see. Sincerely anxious for your good.’ ‘Oh, he was, he was. He loved me devotedly.’ ‘And are you poor?’ ‘Very.’ ‘Then why do you live in Hertford Street?’ ‘Because that was his flat when he had to come up on business, and was just big enough for me, he thought. Where we really lived was in the country. It was beautiful there,--the house and everything. He left all that in his will to--to another relation, and nearly all his money of course, so as to keep it up properly, besides so as to protect me, and I got the flat, just as it is, for my life, with the rent paid out of the estate, and the use of the furniture and a little money--enough, he thought, for me by myself and one servant, but not enough to make me what he called a prey to some rascally fortune-hunter in my old age.’ She smiled as she used George’s phrase; how well she remembered his saying it, and things like it. ‘What a cautious, far-seeing man,’ remarked Christopher, his opinion of George not quite what it was. ‘He loved me very much,’ said Catherine simply. ‘Yes--and whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,’ said Christopher. ‘As no doubt Stephen has pointed out.’ ‘Well, but when George made his will, five hundred a year and no rent to pay at all and all the furniture to use, wasn’t in the least chastening for one woman by herself,’ she said. ‘Five hundred? Why, I’ve got nearly double that, and I feel as poor as a rat!’ exclaimed Christopher. ‘Yes, but when George made his will it was worth much more.’ ‘Was it? Why, when did he make his will?’ And Catherine, suddenly realising that in another moment at this rate she would inevitably tumble right into Virginia, paused an instant, and then said, ‘Before he died, of course----’ and refused after that to say another word about him. VII