The doctor, when he arrived in his own house, had in nowise made up his mind as to the manner in which he would break the matter to Mary; but by the time that he had reached the drawing-room, he had made up his mind to this, that he would put off the evil hour till the morrow.  He would sleep on the matter—­lie awake on it, more probably—­and then at breakfast, as best he could, tell her what had been said of her.

Mary that evening was more than usually inclined to be playful.  She had not been quite certain till the morning, whether Frank had absolutely left Greshamsbury, and had, therefore, preferred the company of Miss Oriel to going up to the house.  There was a peculiar cheerfulness about her friend Patience, a feeling of satisfaction with the world and those in it, which Mary always shared with her; and now she had brought home to the doctor’s fireside, in spite of her young troubles, a smiling face, if not a heart altogether happy.

‘Uncle,’ she said at last, ’what makes you so sombre?  Shall I read to you?’

‘No; not to-night, dearest.’

‘Why, uncle; what is the matter?’

‘Nothing, nothing.’

‘Ah, but it is something, and you shall tell me;’ getting up, she came over to his arm-chair, and leant over his shoulder.

He looked up at her for a minute in silence, and then, getting up from his chair, passed his arm round her waist, and pressed her closely to his heart.

‘My darling!’ he said, almost convulsively.  ’My best own, truest darling!’ and Mary looked up into his face, saw that big tears were running down his cheeks.

But still he told her nothing that night.

CHAPTER XV

COURCY

When Frank Gresham expressed to his father an opinion that Courcy Castle was dull, the squire, as may be remembered, did not pretend to differ from him.  To men such as the squire, and such as the squire’s son, Courcy Castle was dull.  To what class of men it would not be dull the author is not prepared to say; but it may be presumed that the De Courcys found it to their liking, or they would have made it other than it was.

The castle itself was a huge brick pile, built in the days of William III, which, though they were grand for days of the construction of the Constitution, were not very grand for architecture of a more material description.  It had, no doubt, a perfect right to be called a castle, as it was entered by a castle-gate which led into a court the porter’s lodge for which was built as it were into the wall; there were attached to it also two round, stumpy adjuncts, which were, perhaps properly, called towers, though they did not do much in the way of towering; and, moreover, along one side of the house, over what would otherwise have been the cornice, there ran a castellated parapet, through the assistance of which, the imagination no doubt was intended to supply the muzzles of defiant artillery.  But any artillery which would have so presented its muzzle must have been very small, and it may be doubted whether even a bowman could have obtained shelter there.