He did, it is true, think something about his worldly prospects.  He had talked rather grandiloquently to his mother as to his hating money, and hating the estate.  His mother’s never-ceasing worldly cares on such subjects perhaps demanded that a little grandiloquence should be opposed to them.  But Frank did not hate the estate; nor did he at all hate the position of an English country gentleman.  Miss Dunstable’s eloquence, however, rang in his ears.  For Miss Dunstable had an eloquence of her own, even in her letters.  ’Never let them talk you out of your own true, honest, hearty feelings,’ she had said.  ’Greshamsbury is a very nice place, I am sure; and I hope I shall see it some day; but all its green knolls are not half so nice, should not be half so precious, as the pulses of your own heart.  That is your own estate, your own, your very own—­your own and another’s; whatever may go to the money-lenders, don’t send that there.  Don’t mortgage that, Mr Gresham.’

‘No,’ said Frank, pluckily, as he put his horse into a faster trot, ’I won’t mortgage that.  They may do what they like with the estate; but my heart’s my own,’ and so speaking to himself, almost aloud, he turned a corner of the road rapidly and came at once upon the doctor.

‘Hallo, doctor! is that you?’ said Frank, rather disgusted.

‘What!  Frank!  I hardly expected to meet you here,’ said Dr Thorne, not much better pleased.

They were now not above a mile from Boxall Hill, and the doctor, therefore, could not but surmise whither Frank was going.  They had repeatedly met since Frank’s return from Cambridge, both in the village and in the doctor’s house; but not a word had been said between them about Mary beyond what the merest courtesy had required.  Not that each did not love the other sufficiently to make a full confidence between them desirable to both; but neither had had the courage to speak out.

Nor had either of them the courage to do so now.  ‘Yes,’ said Frank, blushing, ’I am going to Lady Scatcherd’s.  Shall I find the ladies at home?’

’Yes; Lady Scatcherd is there; but Sir Louis is there also—­an invalid:  perhaps you would not wish to meet him.’

‘Oh!  I don’t mind,’ said Frank, trying to laugh; ’he won’t bite, I suppose?’

The doctor longed in his heart to pray to Frank to return with him; not to go and make further mischief; not to do that which might cause a more bitter estrangement between himself and the squire.  But he had not the courage to do it.  He could not bring himself to accuse Frank of being in love with his niece.  So after a few more senseless words on either side, words which each knew to be senseless as he uttered them, they both rode on their own ways.