His mother said nothing to him on the subject:  when she learnt that the affair with Miss Dunstable was not to come off, she merely remarked that it would perhaps be best for him to return to Cambridge as soon as possible.  Had she spoken her mind out, she would probably have also advised him to remain there as long as possible.  The countess had not omitted to write to her when Frank had left Courcy Castle; and the countess’s letter certainly made the anxious mother think that her son’s education had hardly yet been completed.  With this secondary object, but with that of keeping him out of the way of Mary Thorne in the first place, Lady Arabella was now quite satisfied that her son should enjoy such advantages as an education completed at the university might give him.

With his father Frank had a long conversation; but, alas! the gist of his father’s conversation was this, that it behoved him, Frank, to marry money.  The father, however, did not put it to him in the cold, callous way in which his lady-aunt had done, and his lady-mother.  He did not bid him go and sell himself to the first female he could find possessed of wealth.  It was with inward self-reproaches, and true grief of spirit, that the father told the son that it was not possible for him to do as those who may do who are born really rich, or really poor.

‘If you marry a girl without a fortune, Frank, how are you to live?’ the father asked, after having confessed how deep he himself had injured his own heir.

‘I don’t care about money, sir,’ said Frank.  ’I shall be just as happy if Boxall Hill had never been sold.  I don’t care a straw about that sort of thing.’

‘Ah! my boy; but you will care:  you will soon find that you do care.’

’Let me go into some profession.  Let me go to the Bar.  I am sure I could earn my own living.  Earn it! of course I could, why not I as well as others?  I should like of all things to be a barrister.’

There was much more of the same kind, in which Frank said all that he could think of to lessen his father’s regrets.  In their conversation not a word was spoken about Mary Thorne.  Frank was not aware whether or no his father had been told of the great family danger which was dreaded in that quarter.  That he had been told, we may surmise, as Lady Arabella was not wont to confine the family dangers to her own bosom.  Moreover, Mary’s presence had, of course, been missed.  The truth was, that the squire had been told, with great bitterness, of what had come to pass, and all the evil had been laid at his door.  He it had been who hand encouraged Mary to be regarded almost as a daughter of the house of Greshamsbury:  he it was who taught that odious doctor—­odious on all but his aptitude for good doctoring—­to think himself a fit match for the aristocracy of the county.  It had been his fault, this great necessity that Frank should marry money; and now it was his fault that Frank was absolutely talking of marrying a pauper.