Mr Gazebee’s next task was to discuss the matter with the squire.  Nor was this easy, for Mr Gazebee was no favourite with Mr Gresham.  But the task was at last performed successfully.  Mr Gresham was so glad at heart to find himself able, once more, to ask his old friend to his own house; and, though it would have pleased him better that this sign of relenting on his wife’s part should have reached him by other means, he did not refuse to take advantage of it; and so he wrote the above letter to Dr Thorne.

The doctor, as we have said, read it twice; and he at once resolved stoutly that he would not go.

‘Oh, do, do, do go!’ said Mary.  She well knew how wretched this feud had made her uncle.  ‘Pray, pray go!’

‘Indeed, I will not,’ said he.  ’There are some things a man should bear, and some he should not.’

‘You must go,’ said Mary, who had taken the note from her uncle’s hand, and read it.  ‘You cannot refuse him when he asks you like that.’

‘It will greatly grieve me; but I must refuse him.’

’I also am angry, uncle; very angry with Lady Arabella; but for him, for the squire, I would go to him on my knees if he asked me in that way.’

‘Yes; and had he asked you, I also would have gone.’

’Oh! now I shall be so wretched.  It is his invitation, not hers:  Mr Gresham could not ask me.  As for her, do not think of her; but do, do go when he asks you like that.  You will make me so miserable if you do not.  And then Sir Louis cannot go without you,’—­and Mary pointed upstairs—­’and you may be sure that he will go.’

‘Yes; and make a beast of himself.’

This colloquy was cut short by a message praying the doctor to go up to Sir Louis’s room.  The young man was sitting in his dressing-gown, drinking a cup of coffee at his toilet-table, while Joe was preparing his razor and hot water.  The doctor’s nose immediately told him that there was more in the coffee-cup than had come out of his own kitchen, and he would not let the offence pass unnoticed.

‘Are you taking brandy this morning, Sir Louis?’

‘Just a little chasse-cafe,’ said he, not exactly understanding the word he used.  ‘It’s all the go now; and a capital thing for the stomach.’

’It’s not a capital thing for your stomach;—­about the least capital thing you can take; that is, if you wish to live.’

’Never mind about that now, doctor, but look here.  This is what we call the civil thing—­eh?’ and he showed the Greshamsbury note.  ’Not but that they have an object, of course.  I understand all that.  Lots of girls there—­eh?’

The doctor took the note and read it.  ‘It is civil,’ said he; ’very civil.’

’Well; I shall go, of course.  I don’t bear malice because he can’t pay me the money he owes me.  I’ll eat his dinner, and look at the girls.  Have you an invite too, doctor?’

‘Yes; I have.’