“God bless my soul, no! I never wanted to marry Elisabeth Eden--though there were plenty of men who did.” He regarded Sara with an odd smile. “Some day, you'll know--why I never wanted to marry Elisabeth.” “Tell me now.” He shook his head. “No. You'll know soon enough--soon enough.” He was silent, fallen a-dreaming once again; and again he seemed to pull himself up short, forcing himself back to the consideration of the practical needs of the moment. “As I was saying, Sara, sooner or later you'll have to turn out of the old Court. It's entailed, and the income with it. But I've a clear four hundred a year, altogether apart from the Barrow moneys, and that, at my death, will be yours.” “I don't want to hear about it!” burst out Sara passionately. “It's hateful even talking of such things.” Patrick smiled, amused and a little touched by youth's lack of worldly wisdom. “Don't be a fool, my dear. I shan't die a day sooner for having made my will--and I shall die a deal more comfortably, knowing that you are provided for. I promised your mother that, as far as lay in my power, I would shield you from wrecking your life as she wrecked hers. And money--a secure little income of her own--is a very good sort of shield for a women. Four hundred's not enough to satisfy a mercenary individual, but it's enough to enable a woman to marry for love--and not for a home!” He spoke with a kind of repressed bitterness, as though memory had stirred into fresh flame the embers of some burnt-out passion of regret, and Sara looked at him with suddenly aroused interest. But apparently Patrick did not sense the question that troubled on her lips, or, if he did, had no mind to answer it, for he went on in lighter tones: “There, that's enough about business for the present. I only wanted you to know that, whatever happens, you will be all right as far as bread-and-cheese are concerned.” “I believe you think that's all I should care about!” exclaimed Sara stormily. Patrick smiled. He had not been a citizen of the world for over sixty years without acquiring the grim knowledge that neither intense happiness nor deep grief suffice to deaden for very long the pinpricks of material discomfort. But the worldly-wise old man possessed a broad tolerance for the frailties of human nature, and his smile held nothing of contempt, but only a whimsical humour touched with kindly understanding.