"You know that I love you----"
"I know nothing of the sort. If you did, you'd not go after your cousin; not that I've a word to say against her, though she did treat me like dirt when we spoke at Wargrove."
"I only went to see my cousin about the money left by her father."
Miss Lorry turned and leaned against the wall near the door. "There was no money left," she said sharply. "Mrs. Merry told Cain, and he told me. The poor girl has to go out as a companion."
"I know. But there is money. Strode told me that he would give her and me forty thousand pounds if we married."
"Very well, then," said Miss Lorry, her eyes flashing; "why don't you go and marry her? I won't stop you."
"Because, in the first place, I love you; in the second, she has not got the money and don't know where it is; and in the third, she is engaged to a fellow called Hill."
"Allen Hill?" said Miss Lorry; "yes, I remember him. He told me he was engaged when we spoke at the gate of the cottage. A nice young fellow and quite the man. I love a man," said Miss Lorry admiringly, "and that chap has a man's eye in his head, I can tell you."
"What about me?"
"Oh, you're a man right enough, or I shouldn't have taken up with you. But I say, if Miss Strode's engaged to Hill why doesn't she marry him now that the father's dead and there's no obstacle?"