‘Good-bye, Mary,’ said Patience.  ’I wish I knew how to say more to comfort you.’

‘Oh, comfort!  I don’t want comfort.  I want to be let alone.’

’That’s just it:  you are so ferocious in your scorn, so unbending, so determined to take all the punishment that comes in your way.’

‘What I do take, I’ll take without complaint,’ said Mary; and then they kissed each other and parted.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A MORNING VISIT

It must be remembered that Mary, among her miseries, had to suffer this:  that since Frank’s departure, now nearly twelve months ago, she had not heard a word about him; or rather, she had only heard that he was very much in love with some lady in London.  This news reached her in a manner so circuitous, and from such a doubtful source; it seemed to her to savour so strongly of Lady Arabella’s precautions, that she attributed it at once to malice, and blew it to the winds.  It might not improbably be the case that Frank was untrue to her; but she would not take it for granted because she was now told so.  It was more than probable that he should amuse himself with some one; flirting was his prevailing sin; and if he did flirt, the most would of course be made of it.

But she found it to be very desolate to be thus left alone without a word of comfort or a word of love; without being able to speak to any one of what filled her heart; doubting, nay, more than doubting, being all but sure that her passion must terminate in misery.  Why had she not obeyed her conscience and her better instinct in that moment when the necessity for deciding had come upon her?  Why had she allowed him to understand that he was master of her heart?  Did she not know that there was everything against such a marriage as that which was proposed?  Had she not done wrong, very wrong, even to think of it?  Had she not sinned deeply, against Mr Gresham, who had ever been so kind to her?  Could she hope, was it possible, that a boy like Frank should be true to his first love?  And, if he were true, if he were ready to go to the altar with her to-morrow, ought she to allow him to degrade himself by such a marriage?

There was, alas! some truth about the London lady.  Frank had taken his degree, as arranged, and had then gone abroad for the winter, doing the fashionable things, going up the Nile, crossing over to Mount Sinai, thence over the long desert to Jerusalem, and home by Damascus, Beyrout, and Constantinople, bringing back a long beard, a red cap, and a chibook, just as our fathers used to go through Italy and Switzerland, and our grandfathers to spend a season in Paris.  He had then remained for a couple of months in London, going through all the society which the De Courcys were able to open to him.  And it was true that a certain belle of the season, of that season and some others, had been captivated—­for the tenth time—­by the silken sheens of his long beard.  Frank had probably been more demonstrative, perhaps, ever more susceptible, than he should have been; and hence the rumour, which had all too willingly been forwarded to Greshamsbury.