’I should perhaps apologise also for delay in my reply.  I have had much to think of in this matter, and have many others also on my mind.

’Believe me to be,
Yours faithfully,
Omnium.’

It was very short, and as being short was infinitely less troublesome at the moment than a fuller epistle; but he was very angry with himself, knowing that it was too short, feeling that it was ungracious.  He should have expressed a hope that he might soon see her again,—­only he had no such wish.  There had been times at which he had liked her, but he knew that he did not like her now.  And yet he was bound to be her friend!  If he could only do some great thing for her, and thus satisfy his feeling of indebtedness towards her!  But all the favours had been from her to him and his.

CHAPTER 23

Frank Tregear Wants a Friend

Six or seven weeks had passed since Tregear had made his communication to the Duke, and during that time he had heard not a word about the girl he loved.  He knew, indeed, that she was at the Horns, and probably had reason to suppose that she was being guarded there, as it were, out of his reach.  This did not surprise him; nor did he regard it as a hardship.  It was to be expected that she should be kept out of his sight.  But this was a state of things to which, as he thought, there should not be more than a moderate amount of submission.  Six weeks was not a very long period, but it was perhaps long enough for evincing that respect which he owed to the young lady’s father.  Something must be done some day.  How could he expect her to be true to him unless he took some means of showing himself to be true to her?

In these days he did not live very much with her brother.  He not only disliked, but distrusted Major Tifto, and had so expressed himself as to give rise to angry words.  Silverbridge had said that he knew how to take care of himself.  Tregear had replied that he had his doubts on that matter.  Then the Member of Parliament had declared that at any rate he did not intend to be taken care of by Frank Tregear!  In such a state of things it was not possible that there should be any close confidence as to Lady Mary.  Nor does it often come to pass that the brother is the confidant of his sister’s lover.  Brothers hardly like their sisters to have lovers, though they are often well satisfied that their sisters should find husbands.  Tregear’s want of rank and wealth added something to this feeling in the mind this brother, so that Silverbridge, though he felt himself to be deterred by friendship from any open opposition, still was almost inimical.  ‘It won’t do, you know,’ he had said to his brother Gerald, shaking his head.

Tregear, however, was determined to be active in the matter, to make some effort, to speak to somebody.  But how to make an effort,—­and to whom should he speak?  Thinking of all this he remembered that Mrs Finn had sent for him and had told him to go with his love story to the Duke.  She had been almost severe with him;—­but after the interview was over, he had felt that she had acted well and wisely.  He therefore determined that he would go to Mrs Finn.