"Do nothing," I said, gently, and yet with some severity. "If you do anything do just as I've said. That's all we've got to know for the present." "But I must see him. Now that I've got used to doing it--" "If you must see him, dear Mrs. Brokenshire, you will." "Shall I? Will you promise me?" "I don't have to promise you. It's the way life works. If we only trust to events--and to whatever it is that guides events--and--and do right--I must repeat it--then the thing that ought to be will shape its course--" "Ah, but if it doesn't?" "In that case we can know that it oughtn't to be." "I don't care whether it ought to be or not, so long as I can go on seeing him--somewhere." I had enough sympathy with her to say: "Yes, but don't plan for it. Let it take care of itself and happen in some natural way. Isn't it by mapping out things for ourselves that we often thwart the good that would otherwise have come to us? I remember reading somewhere of a lady who wrote of herself that she had been healed of planning, and spoke of it as a real cure. That struck me as so sensible. Life--not to use a greater word--knows much better what's good for us than we do ourselves." She allowed this theme to lapse, while she sat pensive. "What shall I say," she asked at last, "if he brings the subject up?" I saw another opportunity. "What can you say other than what I've said already? You came to me because you were sorry for me, and you wanted to help Hugh. He might regret that you should do both, but he couldn't blame you for either. They're only kindnesses--and we're all at liberty to be kind. Oh, don't you see? That's your--how shall I put it?--that's your line if Mr. Brokenshire ever speaks to you." "And suppose he tells me not to go to see you any more?" "Then you must stop. That will be the time. But not now when the mere stopping would be a kind of confession--" And so, after many repetitions and some tears on both our parts, the lesson was urged home. She was less docile, however, when in the spirit of our new compact she came on the following Monday morning. "I must see him," was the burden of what she had to say. She spoke as if I was forbidding her and ought to lift my veto. I might even have inferred that in my position in Mr. Grainger's employ it was for me to arrange their meetings. "You will see him, dear Mrs. Brokenshire--if it's right," was the only answer I could find. "You don't seem to remember that I was to have married him." "I do, but we both have to remember that you didn't." "Neither did I marry Mr. Brokenshire. I was handed over to him. When Lady Mary Hamilton was handed over in that way to the Prince of Monaco the Pope annulled the marriage. We knew her afterward in Budapest, married to some one else. If there's such a thing as right, as you're so fond of saying, I ought to be considered free." I was holding both her hands as I said: "Don't try to make yourself free. Let life do it."