‘What, Dr Thorne?’ Now the Countess de Courcy hated Dr Thorne with a holy hatred.

’Yes; Dr Thorne.  I believe that he knows everything; and advises everything, too.  Whatever difficulties poor Gresham may have, I do believe Dr Thorne has brought them about.  I do believe it, Rosina.’

’Well, that is surprising.  Mr Gresham with all his faults is a gentleman; and how he can talk about his affairs with a low apothecary like that I, for one, cannot imagine.  Lord de Courcy has not always been to me all that he should have been; far from it.’  And Lady de Courcy thought over in her mind injuries of a much graver description than any that her sister-in-law had ever suffered; ’but I have never known anything like that at Courcy Castle.  Surely Umbleby knows all about it, doesn’t he?’

‘Not half so much as the doctor,’ said Lady Arabella.

The countess shook her head slowly; the idea of Mr Gresham, a country gentleman of good estate like him, making a confidant of a country doctor was too great a shock for her nerves; and for a while she was constrained to sit silent before she could recover herself.

‘One thing at any rate is certain, Arabella,’ said the countess, as soon as she found herself again sufficiently composed to offer counsel in a properly dictatorial manner.  ’One thing at any rate is certain; if Mr Gresham be involved so deeply as you say, Frank has but only one duty before him.  He must marry money.  The heir of fourteen thousand a year may indulge himself in looking for blood, as Mr Gresham did, my dear’—­it must be understood that there was very little compliment in this, as the Lady Arabella had always conceived herself to be a beauty—­’or for beauty, as some men do,’ continued the countess, thinking of the choice that the present Earl de Courcy had made; ’but Frank must marry money.  I hope he will understand this early; do make him understand this before he makes a fool of himself:  when a man thoroughly understands this, when he knows what his circumstances require, why, the matter becomes easy to him.  I hope that Frank understands that he has no alternative.  In his position he must marry money.’

But, alas! alas!  Frank Gresham had already made a fool of himself.

‘Well, my boy, I wish you joy with all my heart,’ said the Honourable John, slapping his cousin on the back, as he walked round to the stable-yard with him before dinner, to inspect a setter puppy of peculiarly fine breed which had been sent to Frank as a birthday present.  ’I wish I were an elder son; but we can’t all have that luck.’

’Who wouldn’t sooner be the younger son of an earl than the eldest son of a plain squire?’ said Frank, wishing to say something civil in return for his cousin’s civility.