Margaret had long since talked with Miss Skeat about her disturbed affairs, and concerning the prospect that was before her of being comparatively poor.
And Miss Skeat, in her high-bred old-fashioned way, had laid her hand gently on the Countess's arm in token of sympathy.
"Dear Countess," she had said, "please remember that it will not make any difference to me, and that I will never leave you.

Poverty is not a new thing to me, my dear." The tears came into Margaret's eyes as she pressed the elder lady's hand in silence.

These passages of feeling were rare between them, but they understood each other, for all that.

And now Margaret was speaking despondently of the future.

A few days before she had made up her mind at last to write the necessary letters to Russia, and she had now despatched them on their errand.