She frowned with annoyance. 'How stupid I am!' But the little episode relieved the tension between them; and, as a child might have done to a play-fellow, she suddenly put out her hand, and, taking his, pulled him down beside her on the long, low, leather-covered couch. 'I want to speak to you about a really serious business, and I know--at least, I am afraid--that you will disapprove of what I want to do, and that you may try and make me alter my mind.' She spoke nervously, with a new, a gentler, note in her voice. A blessed peace stole into Winfrith's heart; he chased the dread which had for the moment possessed him, and it was in his usual tone, with his usual half-bantering manner, that he asked the reproachful question, 'Why did you say that--I mean, as to this being the last time? Surely I have not deserved that you should say such things to me!' 'No, indeed--indeed you have not!' And the hurried humility with which she spoke might well have re-awakened his premonition of coming pain and parting. 'But you will soon understand what I meant, when I have explained everything.' Again there was silence between them; but Winfrith, her last words sounding in his ears, feeling her dear nearness, though he had moved somewhat away from where she had placed him, was in no haste to hear her confidences. Secretly he pledged himself not to scold her--indeed, to listen patiently, and to help her, however unpractical and foolish the scheme for which she sought his help. At last Penelope, paler than her wont, her voice tremulous, lacking its usual hard, bell-like quality of tone, spoke, and to some purpose: 'I have made up my mind to do what you have always wished--that is, to endow the Settlement. Though what you said just now about my husband and his arrangements made me angry, I know it was true. He ought not to have left me such power.' Winfrith felt relieved but bewildered, and straightway he blundered. 'Certainly something of the kind ought to have been done long ago, but you always opposed it. You----' 'I suppose I have the right to change my mind, to be guided by circumstances? Besides, I am tired, utterly tired, of the responsibility as well as of the Settlement.' She looked at him fixedly for a moment. 'I know what you would like to say; that I have had nothing to do with it, in a real sense, for many years past. But that is false; no day goes by without my receiving some tiresome letter or letters. Whenever any of the "Settlers"'--Winfrith had never before heard her use the contemptuous term--'fall out, and they are always falling out----' 'That at least is untrue,' he interrupted. 'Yes, they do--they do! And when they do, then they write to me to patch up the quarrel!'