That abomination of a man Mr Ainsworth has been writing each day now to beg Miss Walker to write back to him with a decision. His wife not even buried! Has he no guilty thoughts for what he has done? He simply thinks he can now claim her, again.

For some unimaginable reason she tells me she needs to think and will write back to him with her decision. As if there is any decision to be made! I am incensed and cannot hide it. She is now deciding between Mr Ainsworth and me.

I snatch from her a ridiculous six-page letter in which he exhorts that he has always loved her and is sorry he was so ‘forthcoming’ all those years ago. Forthcoming! He says he could not control himself around her. He’d married Mrs Ainsworth for money when they were both so young, but now he is free he wants nothing more than to marry Miss Walker. He goes on to say how he was there for her in the grief of her fiancé Mr Fraser and so she is in his debt! How was he there for her, I ask her? She tells me he wrote several letters of condolence, which she burned in the fire and never replied to. I tell her he would have been pleased at Mr Fraser’s death, leaving her still single and available for him in the future.

Then it strikes me. Could Mrs Ainsworth’s accident have been planned? I do not mention this, of course.

It takes some time, but I believe she finally now sees him for the snake he is, sees him as I see him, and then she becomes woeful that she has been stupid and naive. I cannot say much on that point without offending her.

She allows me to write back to him on her behalf with a blunt no. Although I’d have chosen stronger language, I must make it sound like Miss Walker. She will not attend the funeral as it would be simply too difficult, both for her grief and her fear of seeing him. She, or rather I, ask him to leave her alone for good. I tell him she will burn any future letters and he had no right to do what he did then, or to propose to her now. It seems to be the end of the whole bother; if only she could erase him from her memory as easily.

On the day of poor Mrs Ainsworth’s funeral, we go to our Parish Church and say our own prayers for her.