“If you have quite done, father,” she answered coldly, “I should like to go before I say something which I might be sorry for.  Of course you can write what you like to Colonel Quaritch, and I shall write to him, too.”

Her father made no answer beyond sitting down at his table and grabbing viciously at a pen.  So she left the room, indignant, indeed, but with as heavy a heart as any woman could carry in her breast.

“Dear Sir,” wrote the not unnaturally indignant Squire, “I have been informed by my daughter Ida of her entanglement with you.  It is one which, for reasons that I need not enter into, is distasteful to me, as well as, I am sorry to say, ruinous to Ida herself and to her family.  Ida is of full age, and must, of course, do as she pleases with herself.  But I cannot consent to become a party to what I disapprove of so strongly, and this being the case, I must beg you to cease your visits to my house.

“I am, sir, your obedient servant,
“James de la Molle.

“Colonel Quaritch, V.C.”

Ida as soon as she had sufficiently recovered herself also wrote to the Colonel.  She told him the whole story, keeping nothing back, and ended her letter thus: 

“Never, dear Harold, was a woman in a greater difficulty and never have I more needed help and advice.  You know and have good reason to know how hateful this marriage would be to me, loving you as I do entirely and alone, and having no higher desire than to become your wife.  But of course I see the painfulness of the position.  I am not so selfish as my father believes or says that he believes.  I quite understand how great would be the material advantage to my father if I could bring myself to marry Mr. Cossey.  You may remember I told you once that I thought no woman has a right to prefer her own happiness to the prosperity of her whole family.  But, Harold, it is easy to speak thus, and very, very hard to act up to it.  What am I to do?  What am I to do?  And yet how can I in common fairness ask you to answer that question?  God help us both, Harold!  Is there no way out of it?”

These letters were both duly received by Harold Quaritch on the following morning and threw him into a fever of anxiety and doubt.  He was a just and reasonable man, and, knowing something of human nature, under the circumstances did not altogether wonder at the Squire’s violence and irritation.  The financial position of the de la Molle family was little, if anything, short of desperate.  He could easily understand how maddening it must be to a man like Mr. de la Molle, who loved Honham, which had for centuries been the home of his race, better than he loved anything on earth, to suddenly realise that it must pass away from him and his for ever, merely because a woman happened to prefer one man to another, and that man, to his view, the less eligible of the two.  So keenly did he realise this, indeed, that he greatly doubted whether or no he was justified in continuing his advances to Ida.  Finally, after much thought, he wrote to the Squire as follows: