'Not at all,' said Elizabeth decidedly. 'You pay me quite enough.'
'You are not offended with me for asking?' His tone had become astonishingly deferential.
'Not the least. I am a business woman. If I thought myself entitled to more I should say so. But it is extremely doubtful whether I can really be of any use whatever to you.'
'All right,' said the Squire, returning to his own table. 'Now, then, let us go on with No. 190.'
'Is it necessary now to put in—well, quite so much about Penelope?' asked Elizabeth, as she took up her pen.
'What do you think?'
'It seems a little long and dragged in.' Elizabeth looked critically at the paragraph.
'And we have now unravelled the web?—we can do without her? Yes—let her go!' said the Squire, in a tone of excessive complaisance.
When the morning's work was done, and luncheon over, Elizabeth carried off Pamela to her room. When Pamela emerged, she went in search of Forest, interviewed him in the gun-room, and then shutting herself up in the 'den' she wrote to Desmond.