The Squire was checked.  This possible aspect of the case had not occurred to him.  But he was not to be defeated.

’If you can move her from one house to another, surely you could move her here—­in an invalid motor?  It would only take an hour and a half.’

Elizabeth shook her head quietly, but decidedly.

’Thank you, but I am afraid it is impossible.  She couldn’t take the journey, and—­no, indeed, it is out of the question!’

‘Will you ask your doctor?’ said the Squire obstinately.

’I know what he would say.  Please don’t think of it, Mr. Mannering.  It’s very, very good of you.’

‘It’s not the least good,’ said the Squire roughly.  ’It’s sheer, naked self-interest.  If you’re not at ease about your mother, you’ll be throwing up your work here again some day, for good, and that’ll be death and damnation!’

He turned frowning away, and threw himself into a chair by the fire.

So the murder was out.  Elizabeth must needs laugh.  But this clumsy way of showing her that she was indispensable not only touched her feeling, but roused up the swarm of perplexities which had buzzed around her ever since her summons to her mother’s bedside on the morning after her scene with Pamela.  And again she asked herself, ‘Why did I come back?  And what am I going to do?’

She looked in doubt at the fuming gentleman by the fire, and suddenly conscience bade her be frank.

’I would like to stay here, Mr. Mannering, and go on with my work.  I have told you so before.  I will stay—­as long as I can.  But I mustn’t burn my boats.  I mustn’t stay indefinitely.  I have come to see that would not be fair—­’

‘To whom?’ cried the Squire, raising himself—­’to whom?’

‘To Pamela,’ said Elizabeth firmly.

‘Pamela!’ The Squire leapt from his seat.  ’What on earth has Pamela got to do with it!’

’A very great deal.  She is the natural head of your house, and it would be very difficult for me to go on living here—­after—­perhaps—­I have just put a few things straight for you, and catalogued the pots—­without getting in her way, and infringing her rights!’

Elizabeth was sitting very erect and bright-eyed.  It seemed to her that some subliminal self for which she was hardly responsible had suddenly got the better of a hair-splitting casuistical self, which had lately been in command of her, and that the subliminal self had spoken words of truth and soberness.

But instead of storming, the Squire laughed contemptuously.

’Pamela’s rights?  Well, I’ll discuss them when she remembers her duties!  I remonstrated with her one morning when the servants were all giving warning—­and there was nothing to eat—­and she had made a hideous mess of some instructions of mine about a letter to the County Council—­and I pointed out to her that none of these things would have happened if you had been here.’