‘No, I should not like to see that.’

’You would not wish to begin life as an embarrassed man and end it as a ruined man.  If you were now to marry Miss Thorne such would, I fear, doubtless be your lot.’

Frank caught at the word ‘now’.  ’I don’t expect to marry immediately.  I know that would be imprudent.  But I am pledged, father, and I certainly cannot go back.  And now that I have told you all this, what is your advice to me?’

The father again sat silent, still sipping his wine.  There was nothing in his son that he could be ashamed of, nothing that he could meet with anger, nothing that he could not love; but how should he answer him?  The fact was, that the son had more in him than the father; this his mind and spirit were of a calibre not to be opposed successfully by the mind and the spirit of the squire.

‘Do you know Mary’s history?’ said Mr Gresham, at last; ’the history of her birth?’

‘Not a word of it,’ said Frank.  ‘I did not know she had a history.’

’Nor does she know it; at least, I presume not.  But you should know it now.  And, Frank, I will tell it you; not to turn you from her—­not with that object, though I think that, to a certain extent, it should have that effect.  Mary’s birth was not such that would become your wife, and be beneficial to your children.’

’If so, father, I should have known it sooner.  Why was she brought here among us?’

’True, Frank.  The fault is mine; mine and your mother’s.  Circumstances brought it all about years ago, when it never occurred to us that all this would arise.  But I will tell you her history.  And, Frank, remember this, though I tell it you as a secret, a secret to be kept from all the world but one, you are quite at liberty to let the doctor know I have told you.  Indeed, I shall be careful to let him know myself should it ever be necessary that he and I should speak together as to this engagement.’  The squire then told his son the whole story of Mary’s birth, as it is known to the reader.

Frank sat silent, looking very blank; he also had, as had every Gresham, a great love for his pure blood.  He had said to his mother that he hated money, that he hated the estate; but he would have been very slow to say, even in his warmest opposition to her, that he hated the roll of the family pedigree.  He loved it dearly, though he seldom spoke of it;—­as men of good family seldom do speak of it.  It is one of those possessions which to have is sufficient.  A man having it need not boast of what he has, or show it off before the world.  But on that account he values it more.  He had regarded Mary as a cutting duly taken from the Ullathorne tree; not, indeed, as a grafting branch, full of flower, just separated from the parent stalk, but as being not a whit the less truly endowed with the pure sap of that venerable trunk.  When, therefore, he heard her true history he sat awhile dismayed.