‘Go back to your master!’ she exclaimed, ‘to the man who was good and true and honourable until your crafty advice and insinuations made him forget his nobler nature, and tell him to take his money and spend it on the woman he marries, for I will have none of it! Does he think he can _pay_ me for my love, my faith, my honour? In God’s sight, I am the wife of Lord Ilfracombe, and I will not accept his alms, as if I were a beggar. For three years I have lived by his side, sharing all that was his--his pleasures, his troubles, and his pains. He has had all my love, my devotion, my duty! I have nursed him in sickness, and looked after his interests at all times, and I will not be remunerated for my services as if I were a hireling. Tell him I am his wife, and I throw his money back in his face. He can never pay me for what I have been to him. He will never find another woman to fill my place.’ ‘But, my dear madam, this is folly! Let me entreat you to be reasonable,’ said Mr Sterndale, as he picked up the torn settlement. ‘You may have _thought_ all this, but you know it is not tenable. You are _not_ Lord Ilfracombe’s wife, and you never will be! You have been the most excellent of friends and companions, I admit that freely; but the time has come for parting, and the wisest and most sensible thing for you to do is to acquiesce in his lordship’s decision, and effect this little alteration in his domestic arrangements as quietly as possible. It _must_ be, you know! Why not let it pass without scandal?’ ‘We have not been only friends and companions,’ she repeated scornfully, ‘we have been the dearest and closest of lovers and _confidantes_. Oh, why should I speak to you of it? What should _you_ know of such things? It is not in you to love anyone as I have loved Ilfracombe and he has loved me. But I do not believe your story, not even from the letter you showed me. I don’t believe he wrote it. You lawyers are cunning enough for anything. You may have forged his writing. So I reject your news and your settlement and yourself. Leave me at once and don’t come near me again. I will accept this assurance from no one but Ilfracombe, and I shall not quit his house till he tells me to do so. He left me in charge here, and I do not relinquish it till my master bids me go.’ ‘He’ll bid you fast enough,’ replied the solicitor, as he gathered up his papers and prepared to leave her; ‘and it will be your own fault, Miss Llewellyn, if your exit is made more unpleasant to you than it need have been. The decorators will be in the house, probably, before you get any answer to your appeal to his lordship.’ ‘Then I shall superintend the decorators,’ she said haughtily. ‘As long as anyone sleeps here, I shall sleep here, unless Ilfracombe himself tells me to go.’ ‘Very ill-advised--very foolish,’ remarked Mr Sterndale; ‘but don’t blame me if you suffer for your obstinacy.’