But Mr Crosbie did find some ground for refusing.  It would have been impossible for him to have sat and smiled at Mrs Butterwell’s table in his present frame of mind.  In a mysterious, half-explanatory manner, he let Mr Butterwell know that private affairs of importance made it absolutely necessary that he should remain that evening in town.  “And indeed,” as he said, “he was not his own master just at present.”  “By-the-by,—­of course not.  I had quite forgotten to congratulate you on that head.  So you’re going to be married?  Well; I’m very glad, and hope you’ll be as lucky as I have been.”

“Thank you,” said Crosbie, again rather gloomily.

“A young lady from near Guestwick, isn’t it; or somewhere in those parts?”

“N—­no,” stammered Crosbie.  “The lady comes from Barsetshire.”

“Why, I heard the name.  Isn’t she a Bell, or Tait, or Ball, or some such name as that?”

“No,” said Crosbie, assuming what boldness he could command.  “Her name is de Courcy.”

“One of the earl’s daughters?”

“Yes,” said Crosbie.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.  I’d heard wrong.  You’re going to be allied to a very noble family, and I am heartily glad to hear of your success in life.”  Then Butterwell shook him very cordially by the hand,—­having offered him no such special testimony of approval when under the belief that he was going to marry a Bell, a Tait, or a Ball.  All the same, Mr Butterwell began to think that there was something wrong.  He had heard from an indubitable source that Crosbie had engaged himself to a niece of a squire with whom he had been staying near Guestwick,—­a girl without any money; and Mr Butterwell, in his wisdom, had thought his friend Crosbie to be rather a fool for his pains.  But now he was going to marry one of the de Courcys!  Mr Butterwell was rather at his wits’ ends.

“Well; we shall be sitting at two, you know, and of course you’ll come to us.  If you’re at leisure before that I’ll make over what papers I have to you.  I’ve not been a Lord Eldon in my office, and they won’t break your back.”

Immediately after that Fowler Pratt had been shown into Crosbie’s room, and Crosbie had written the letter to the squire under Pratt’s eye.

He could take no joy in his promotion.  When Pratt left him he tried to lighten his heart.  He endeavoured to throw Lily and her wrongs behind him, and fix his thoughts on his advancing successes in life; but he could not do it.  A self-imposed trouble will not allow itself to be banished.  If a man lose a thousand pounds by a friend’s fault, or by a turn in the wheel of fortune, he can, if he be a man, put his grief down and trample it under foot; he can exorcise the spirit of his grievance, and bid the evil one depart from out of his house.  But such exorcism is not to be used when the sorrow has come from a man’s own folly and sin;—­especially not if it has come from his own selfishness.  Such are the cases which make men drink; which drive them on to the avoidance of all thought; which create gamblers and reckless prodigals; which are the promoters of suicide.  How could he avoid writing this letter to Lily?  He might blow his brains out, and so let there be an end of it all.  It was to such reflections that he came, when he sat himself down endeavouring to reap satisfaction from his promotion.