“Only for the present, I fear. He is a very persistent wretch,” said Merritt.
“Yes, he will come again, and that brings me to what I intended to say to you, my dear Roma, as soon as I knew that you had returned to live here alone, and before I had heard the sad story you told me this morning.”
“Speak your mind, dear Dr. Shaw. I shall be grateful for your counsel. It was to seek it, you know, that I begged your presence here this morning,” Roma replied.
“Then, my dear girl, this is what I wished to say to you—that since you declined to accompany your relatives abroad, and have decided to live here, in this remote manor house, you should not live alone.”
“I do not. I have faithful servants and powerful dogs. I am perfectly safe here,” said Miss Fronde.
“In person, yes, perhaps. But that is not the question, my dear. You will understand me when I say that you should have some elderly, respectable woman—some lady, in fact—to live with you as your chaperon and companion.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Fronde. “Should I? Is that necessary?”
“Absolutely necessary, in my opinion, Roma.”
“Cannot a woman, nearly twenty-three years of age, who is intrusted with the management of a large estate and the expenditure of a princely revenue, be also trusted with the care of herself?”
“Not in the opinion of the world, my dear Roma. For the world rates—and rightly rates—a woman’s fair reputation far above land or money,” gravely replied the old minister.