‘Wishes it!  Oh, mother!’

’I do believe she does, because she has sense to feel the truth of all that your friends say.  Oh, Frank, I will go on my knees to you if you will listen to me.’

‘Oh, mother! mother! mother!’

’You should think twice, Frank, before you refuse the only request your mother ever made you.  And why do I ask you? why do I come to you thus?  Is it for my own sake?  Oh, my boy! my darling boy! will you lose everything in life, because you love the child with whom you played with as a child?’

’Whose fault is it that we were together as children?  She is now more than a child.  I look on her already as my wife.’

’But she is not your wife, Frank; and she knows that she ought not to be.  It is only because you hold her to it that she consents to it.’

‘Do you mean to say that she does not love me?’

Lady Arabella would probably have said this, also, had she dared; but she felt that in doing so, she would be going too far.  It was useless for her to say anything that would be utterly contradicted by an appeal to Mary herself.

’No, Frank; I do not mean to say that you do not love her.  What I do mean is this:  that it is not becoming in you to give up everything—­not only yourself, but all your family—­for such a love as this; and that she, Mary herself acknowledges this.  Every one is of the same opinion.  Ask your father:  I need not say that he would agree with you about everything he could.  I will not say the De Courcys.’

‘Oh, the De Courcys!’

‘Yes, they are my relations, I know that.’  Lady Arabella could not quite drop the tone of bitterness which was natural to her in saying this.  ’But ask your sisters; ask Mr Oriel, whom you esteem so much; ask your friend Harry Baker.’

Frank sat silent for a moment or two while his mother, with a look almost of agony, gazed into his face.  ‘I will ask no one,’ at last he said.

‘Oh, my boy! my boy!’

‘No one but myself can know my heart.’

’And you will sacrifice all to such a love as that, all; her, also, whom you say that you so love?  What happiness can you give her as your wife?  Oh, Frank! is that the only answer you will make to your mother on her knees?

‘Oh, mother! mother!’

’No, Frank, I will not let you ruin yourself; I will not let you destroy yourself.  Promise this, at least, that you will think of what I have said.’

‘Think of it!  I do think of it.’

’Ah, but think of it in earnest.  You will be absent now in London; you will have the business of the estate to manage; you will have heavy cares upon your hands.  Think of it as a man, and not as a boy.’

‘I will see her to-morrow before I go.’

’No, Frank, no; grant me that trifle, at any rate.  Think upon this without seeing her.  Do not proclaim yourself so weak that you cannot trust yourself to think over what your mother says to you without asking her leave.  Though you be in love, do not be childish with it.  What I have told you as coming from her is true, word for word; if it were not, you would soon learn so.  Think now of what I have said, and of what she says, and when you come back from London, then you can decide.’