"How do you mean?"
"You were wise. You did right where I would only have done harm and been brutal. Can't you see these have already served their purpose?"
"I don't understand."
"You told her to get them because you wished to make her think she was doing something for her husband, didn't you? And you couldn't say to her that she would help most by taking herself out of the way, could you? She could not understand, and so they have served their purpose as a means of getting her quietly and harmlessly away so we could properly do our work."
"But I didn't say so—not rightly; I made her think—"
"Never mind what you said or made her think. You did right, God knows. We are all made to work out good—often when we think erroneously, just as you made her uncomprehendingly do what she ought. If ever she grows wise enough to understand, well and good; if not, no harm is done."
Cassandra listened, but doubtingly. At last she stopped her horse. "If you can't use them, I feel like I ought to go back and explain," she said. Her face gleamed whitely out of the gathering dusk, and he saw her shiver in the cold and bitter wind. He was more warmly dressed than she, and still he felt it cut through him icily.