There are services for which one is ready to give almost any amount of money payment, if only one can be sure that that money payment will be taken as sufficient recompense for the service in question.  Sophie Gordeloup had been useful.  She had been very disagreeable, but she had been useful.  She had done things which nobody else could have done, and she had done her work well.  That she had been paid for her work over and over again there was no doubt; but Lady Ongar was willing to give her yet further payment, if only there might be an end of it.  But she feared to do this, dreading the nature and cunning of the little woman—­lest she should take such payment as an acknowledgment of services for which secret compensation must be made, and should then proceed to further threats.  Thinking much of all this, Julie at last wrote to her Sophie as follows: 

Lady Ongar presents her compliments to Madam Gordeloup, and must decline to see Madam Gordeloup again after what has passed.  Lady Ongar is very sorry to hear that Madam Gordeloup is in want of funds.  Whatever assistance Lady Ongar might have been willing to afford, she now feels that she is prohibited from giving any by the allusion which Madam Gordeloup has made to legal advice.  If Madam Gordeloup has legal demands on Lady Ongar which are said by a lawyer to be valid, Lady Ongar would strongly recommend Madam Gordeloup to enforce them.

    Clavering Park, October, 186—.

This she wrote, acting altogether on her own judgment, and sent off by return of post.  She almost wept at her own cruelty after the letter was gone, and greatly doubted her own discretion.  But of whom could she have asked advice?  Could she have told all the story of Madam Gordeloup to the rector or to the rector’s wife?  The letter, no doubt, was a discreet letter, but she greatly doubted her own discretion, and when she received her Sophie’s rejoinder, she hardly dared to break the envelope.

Poor Sophie!  Her Julie’s letter nearly broke her heart.  For sincerity little credit was due to her—­but some little was perhaps due.  That she should be called Madam Gordeloup, and have compliments presented to her by the woman—­by the countess with whom and with whose husband she had been on such closely familiar terms, did in truth wound some tender feelings within her breast.  Such love as she had been able to give, she had given to her Julie.  That she had always been willing to rob her Julie—­to make a milch-cow of her Julie—­to sell her Julie—­to threaten her Julie—­to quarrel with her Julie, if aught might be done in that way—­to expose her Julie—­nay, to destroy her Julie, if money was to be made—­all this did not hinder her love.  She loved her Julie, and was broken-hearted that her Julie should have written to her in such a strain.