Mrs. Darling, alas! has altered. Gone is her air of good comradeship, gone _her_ meat puddings, and _my_ snowy pocket handkerchiefs. She says I can afford to lunch out properly now, and send my washing to a laundry in the country. She seems to have lost interest in me since I ceased to want anything of her. It's a trait I have noticed in women in whom the maternal instinct is strongly developed. But if Mrs. Darling is faithless to me, I am not faithless to her. I have plans for the old lady which I shall unfold in due course. Katherine pensioned her housekeeper, who is retiring, and I propose taking Mrs. Darling with me to Curzon Street. She will be almost as difficult to transplant from Carrington Mews as I shall, but a companion in misfortune softens the blow, and we shall help each other. Dear me, Agatha, but this is a doleful letter, and to tell the truth, my mood is not hilarious. I would give a good deal to have Katherine back in Curzon Street, and myself secure in a life of vagabondage. When I think of all this new life entails I lose heart, and fear to lose my youth also. Now I come to think of it, that's an admission worthy of Old Parr himself. Lose my youth at sixty-five! Haven't I already lost it? The answer is--No, for youth and vagabondage are synonymous. There is only one person who can help me in such a crisis, and that person is yourself. Existence has become too complex to be faced alone. I want some one to help me spend this money in the service of those to whom a few pounds makes the difference between heaven and hell, and your talent for philanthropy has always been handicapped by lack of means. There is, though, a condition attached which may put you off the bargain--George Tallenach is, as Mrs. Darling will tell you, "not everybody's money". But years ago there was a woman who stuck up for George when no one else had a good word to say for him. If now he asks her to change the duties of friend for those of a wife, will she think it too late? Adieu, Agatha, and may the meeting, and the answer, come soon. GEORGE TALLENACH. _Postscript._ George sealed the letter and moved to his armchair by the hearth. The March evening was chill and the fire was companionable. He was in no hurry to light his lamp, for there was always at such an hour the book in the grate which could be best read in the dark.