‘Are you still here, Miss Lorimer? I ordered you to go.’

‘You must eat, sir. I have brought you food.’

‘I want none of it.’

‘It will restore your strength.’

He glared at her. ‘Do not mock me! My strength is gone. There is nothing left but dying, and it will be better if that is quickly done. For both our sakes.’

‘I did not think you were a coward.’

‘Coward?’

‘To take an easy way. It is not what one expects of one who was once a sea captain.’

‘You have a quick tongue. That too brings back memories. But I will not let it provoke me.’

‘Then consider, sir, what is due to me. I have braved the morass of your kitchen. I have prepared you eggs and buttered toast, with a mug of milk not more than a day old. Is all my labour to be wasted? Even if you are determined to die rather than live, surely it would be better to die as a gentleman, and reward my efforts by tasting what I have brought. I do not ask more than that.’

She spoke with insincere but resolute cheerfulness. This, like the greasy mouse-ridden kitchen, the begrimed saucepan, was something to be tackled and endured. It had been a precept of her mother’s, well exemplified in all she did: what is worth doing must be well done.