‘So that must really have been her, and she has destroyed herself!’ he thought. ‘I never really believed it would come to that--never. But it is Lord Ilfracombe’s concern, not mine. It was he that drove her to it. I only acted on his orders, and I am bound to obey him, if he tells me to do a thing. But who would have thought it was in her. She must have felt his marriage very much. I didn’t believe it was _in_ women to care for any man to such an extent. But, perhaps, after all, it was only the loss of her position, illegal as it was, that turned her a bit crazy. It can’t be pleasant after having enjoyed such a home as this to go back to work. Yet she wouldn’t take the money he offered her--a noble compensation. She didn’t seem to think even that enough. Well, well, it is incomprehensible. All the female sex are. To think that she should have preferred death--death! But what am I saying? It may not have been Miss Llewellyn after all. We have no proof. Doubtless, it was some unfortunate who had come to the end of her tether. But it would never do to tell Lord Ilfracombe my suspicions--not yet, at all events, while he is on his wedding tour. Time enough when he has sobered down into a steady married man; then, perhaps, the news will come rather as a relief from all fear of meeting the object of his youthful indiscretion again. Yet, under the water--that beautiful face and figure! It seems too terrible. I must not think of it. There is no reason it should trouble me in the very slightest degree.’ Mr Sterndale rung the bell at this juncture, and ordered the lady’s maid, who had waited upon Miss Llewellyn, to have all her belongings properly packed and locked away, until his lordship’s pleasure concerning them should be known. But the trinket-box he put his own seal on, and carried off to place in his safe with other property belonging to his client. Yet Mr Sterndale, try as he would, could not lock away with it all remembrance of the woman whom he firmly believed to be lying stark and dead beneath the water. His last interview with her kept on returning to his memory, and made him wretched. Her proud, flashing glances, her complete incredulity, and then her bowed head and subdued voice; her attitude of utter despair, her silence, and her final accusation that her lover’s determination had been brought about through his influence. It had in a great measure been so; he knew it and had confessed as much to her. And so she had thought fit to end the matter. Very foolish, very rash, and decidedly unpleasant to think of. So he would put the remembrance away from him at once and for ever. He informed the servants that Miss Llewellyn had returned home to her own people, and that her things were to remain there until they received further orders. But none of them believed his story.