’If you want me, Lady Arabella, and send for me, I will come to you; otherwise, if you please, share the sentence which has been passed on Mary.  I will now wish you good morning.’  And then bowing low to her, he left the room and the house, and sauntered slowly away to his own home.

What was he to say to Mary?  He walked very slowly, down the Greshamsbury avenue with his hands clasped behind his back, thinking over the whole matter; thinking of it, or rather trying to think of it.  When a man’s heart is warmly concerned in any matter, it is almost useless for him to endeavour to think of it.  Instead of thinking, he gives play to his feelings, and feeds his passion by indulging it.  ‘Allurements!’ he said to himself, repeating Lady Arabella’s words.  ’A girl circumstanced like my niece!  How utterly incapable is such a woman as that to understand the mind, and the heart, and soul of such a one as Mary Thorne!’ And then his thoughts recurred to Frank.  ’It has been ill done of him; ill done of him:  young as he is, he should have had feeling enough to spared me this.  A thoughtless word has been spoken which will now make her miserable!’ And then, as he walked on, he could not divest his mind of the remembrance of what had passed between him and Sir Roger.  What, if after all, Mary should become the heiress to all that money?  What, if she should become, in fact, the owner of Greshamsbury? for, indeed it seemed too possible that Sir Roger’s heir would be the owner of Greshamsbury.

The idea was one which he disliked to entertain, but it would recur to him again and again.  It might be, that a marriage between his niece and the nominal heir to the estate might be of all the matches the best for young Gresham to make.  How sweet would be the revenge, how glorious the retaliation on Lady Arabella, if, after what had now been said, it should come to pass that all the difficulties of Greshamsbury should be made smooth by Mary’s love, and Mary’s hand!  It was a dangerous subject on which to ponder.  And, as he sauntered down the road, the doctor did his best to banish it from his mind—­not altogether successfully.

But as he went he again encountered Beatrice.  ’Tell Mary I went up to her to-day,’ said she, ’and that I expect her up here to-morrow.  If she does not come here, I shall be savage.’

‘Do not be savage,’ said he, putting out his hand, ’even though she should not come.’

Beatrice immediately saw that his manner with her was not playful, and that his face was serious.  ‘I was only in joke,’ said she; ’of course I was only joking.  But is anything the matter?  Is Mary ill?’

’Oh, no; not ill at all; but she will not be here to-morrow, nor probably for some time.  But, Miss Gresham, you must not be savage with her.’

Beatrice tried to interrogate him, but he would not wait to answer her questions.  While she was speaking he bowed to her in his usual old-fashioned courteous way, and passed on out of hearing.  ’She will not come up for some time,’ said Beatrice to herself.  ’Then mamma must have quarrelled with her.’  And at once in her heart she acquitted her friend of all blame in the matter, whatever it might be, and condemned her mother unheard.