If you stop here, you will only eat
your heart out and communication between us must become increasingly
difficult. My uncle is furious with you, and since he discovered that we
were talking over the telephone, to his own great inconvenience he has
had the wires cut outside the house. That horrid letter of his to
you saying that you had 'compromised' me in pursuance of a 'mercenary
scheme' is all part and parcel of the same thing. How are you to stop
here and submit to such insults? I went to see my friend the lawyer, and
he tells me that of course we can marry if we like, but in that case my
father's will, which he has consulted at Somerset House, is absolutely
definite, and if I do so in opposition to my uncle's wishes, I must lose
everything except L200 a year. Now I am no money-grubber, but I will not
give my uncle the satisfaction of robbing me of my fortune, which may
be useful to both of us by and by. The lawyer says also that he does not
think that the Court of Chancery would interfere, having no power to do
so as far as the will is concerned, and not being able to make a ward
of a person like myself who is over age and has the protection of the
common law of the country.
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