And then the doctor silently, and almost unconsciously, made such a comparison between Louis Scatcherd and Frank Gresham as Hamlet made between the dead and live king.  It was Hyperion to a satyr.  Was it not as impossible that Mary should not love the one, as that she should love the other?  Frank’s offer of his affections had at first probably been but a boyish ebullition of feeling; but if it should now be, that this had grown into a manly and disinterested love, how could Mary remain unmoved?  What could her heart want more, better, more beautiful, more rich than such a love as this?  Was he not personally all that a girl could like?  Were not his disposition, mind, character, acquirements, all such as women most delight to love?  Was it not impossible that Mary should be indifferent to him?

So meditated the doctor as he road along, with only too true a knowledge of human nature.  Ah! it was impossible, quite impossible that Mary should be indifferent.  She had never been indifferent since Frank had uttered his first half-joking word of love.  Such things are more important to women than they are to men, to girls than they are to boys.  When Frank had first told her that he loved her; aye, months before that, when he merely looked his love, her heart had received the whisper, had acknowledged the glance, unconscious as she was herself, and resolved as she was to rebuke his advances.  When, in her hearing, he had said soft nothings to Patience Oriel, a hated, irrepressible tear had gathered in her eye.  When he had pressed in his warm, loving grasp the hand which she had offered in him in token of mere friendship, her heart had forgiven him the treachery, nay, almost thanked him for it, before her eyes or her words had been ready to rebuke him.  When the rumour of his liaison with Miss Dunstable reached her ears, when she heard of Miss Dunstable’s fortune, she had wept, wept outright, in her chamber—­wept, as she said to herself, to think that he could be so mercenary; but she had wept, as she should have said to herself, at finding that he was so faithless.  Then, when she knew at last that this rumour was false, when she found that she was banished from Greshamsbury for his sake, when she was forced to retreat with her friend Patience, how could she but love him, in that he was not mercenary?  How could she not love him in that was so faithful?

It was impossible that she should not love him.  Was he not the brightest and the best of men that she had ever seen, or was like to see?—­that she could possibly ever see, she would have said to herself, could she have brought herself to own the truth?  And then, when she heard how true he was, how he persisted against father, mother, and sisters, how could it be that that should not be a merit in her eyes which was so great a fault in theirs?  When Beatrice, with would-be solemn face, but with eyes beaming with feminine affection, would gravely talk of Frank’s tender love as a terrible misfortune,