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long as I thought that I had

one true friend to laugh with me. But one cannot laugh with all the

world against one.”

 

“I am not against you, Miss Dunstable.”

 

“Sell yourself for money! why, if I were a man I would not sell one

jot of liberty for mountains of gold. What! tie myself in the heyday

of my youth to a person I could never love, for a price! perjure

myself, destroy myself—and not only myself, but her also, in order

that I might live idly! Oh, heavens! Mr Gresham! can it be that

the words of such a woman as your aunt have sunk so deeply in your

heart; have blackened you so foully as to make you think of such vile

folly as this? Have you forgotten your soul, your spirit, your man’s

energy, the treasure of your heart? And you, so young! For shame, Mr

Gresham! for shame—for shame.”

 

Frank found the task before him by no means an easy one. He had to

make Miss Dunstable understand that he had never had the slightest

idea of marrying her, and that he had made love to her merely with

the object of keeping his hand in for the work as it were; with that

object, and the other equally laudable one of interfering with his

cousin George.

 

And yet there was nothing for him but to get through this task as

best he might. He was goaded to it by the accusations which Miss

Dunstable brought against him; and he began to feel, that though her

invective against him might be bitter when he had told the truth,

they could not be so bitter as those she now kept hinting at under

her mistaken impression as to his views. He had never had any strong

propensity for money-hunting; but now that offence appeared in his

eyes abominable, unmanly, and disgusting. Any imputation would be

better than that.

 

“Miss Dunstable, I never for a moment thought of doing what

you accuse me of; on my honour, I never did. I have been very

foolish—very wrong—idiotic, I believe; but I have never intended

that.”

 

“Then, Mr Gresham, what did you intend?”

 

This was rather a difficult question to answer; and Frank was not

very quick in attempting it. “I know you will not forgive me,” he

said at last; “and, indeed, I do not see how you can. I don’t know

how it came about; but this is certain, Miss Dunstable; I have never

for a moment thought about your fortune; that is, thought about it in

the way of coveting it.”

 

“You never thought of making me your wife, then?”

 

“Never,” said Frank, looking boldly into her face.

 

“You never intended really to propose to go with me to the altar, and

then make yourself rich by one great perjury?”

 

“Never for a moment,” said he.

 

“You have never gloated over me as the bird of prey gloats over the

poor beast that is soon to become carrion beneath its claws? You have

not counted me out as equal to so much land, and calculated on me as

a balance at your banker’s? Ah, Mr Gresham,” she continued, seeing

that he stared as though struck almost with awe by her strong

language; “you little guess what a woman situated as I am has to

suffer.”

 

“I have behaved badly to you, Miss Dunstable, and I beg your pardon;

but I have never thought of your money.”

 

“Then we will be friends again, Mr Gresham, won’t we? It is so nice

to have a friend like you. There, I think I understand it now; you

need not tell me.”

 

“It was half by way of making a fool of my aunt,” said Frank, in an

apologetic tone.

 

“There is merit in that, at any rate,” said Miss Dunstable. “I

understand it all now; you thought to make a fool of me in real

earnest. Well, I can forgive that; at any rate it is not mean.”

 

It may be, that Miss Dunstable did not feel much acute anger at

finding that this young man had addressed her with words of love in

the course of an ordinary flirtation, although that flirtation had

been unmeaning and silly. This was not the offence against which her

heart and breast had found peculiar cause to arm itself; this was not

the injury from which she had hitherto experienced suffering.

 

At any rate, she and Frank again became friends, and, before the

evening was over, they perfectly understood each other. Twice during

this long tête-à-tête Lady de Courcy came into the room to see how

things were going on, and twice she went out almost unnoticed. It

was quite clear to her that something uncommon had taken place, was

taking place, or would take place; and that should this be for weal

or for woe, no good could now come from her interference. On each

occasion, therefore, she smiled sweetly on the pair of turtle-doves,

and glided out of the room as quietly as she had glided into it.

 

But at last it became necessary to remove them; for the world had

gone to bed. Frank, in the meantime, had told to Miss Dunstable all

his love for Mary Thorne, and Miss Dunstable had enjoined him to be

true to his vows. To her eyes there was something of heavenly beauty

in young, true love—of beauty that was heavenly because it had been

unknown to her.

 

“Mind you let me hear, Mr Gresham,” said she. “Mind you do; and, Mr

Gresham, never, never forget her for one moment; not for one moment,

Mr Gresham.”

 

Frank was about to swear that he never would—again, when the

countess, for the third time, sailed into the room.

 

“Young people,” said she, “do you know what o’clock it is?”

 

“Dear me, Lady de Courcy, I declare it is past twelve; I really am

ashamed of myself. How glad you will be to get rid of me to-morrow!”

 

“No, no, indeed we shan’t; shall we, Frank?” and so Miss Dunstable

passed out.

 

Then once again the aunt tapped her nephew with her fan. It was the

last time in her life that she did so. He looked up in her face, and

his look was enough to tell her that the acres of Greshamsbury were

not to be reclaimed by the ointment of Lebanon.

 

Nothing further on the subject was said. On the following morning

Miss Dunstable took her departure, not much heeding the rather cold

words of farewell which her hostess gave her; and on the following

day Frank started for Greshamsbury.

CHAPTER XXI

Mr Moffat Falls into Trouble

 

We will now, with the reader’s kind permission, skip over some months

in our narrative. Frank returned from Courcy Castle to Greshamsbury,

and having communicated to his mother—much in the same manner as he

had to the countess—the fact that his mission had been unsuccessful,

he went up after a day or two to Cambridge. During his short stay at

Greshamsbury he did not even catch a glimpse of Mary. He asked for

her, of course, and was told that it was not likely that she would be

at the house just at present. He called at the doctor’s, but she was

denied to him there; “she was out,” Janet said,—“probably with Miss

Oriel.” He went to the parsonage and found Miss Oriel at home; but

Mary had not been seen that morning. He then returned to the house;

and, having come to the conclusion that she had not thus vanished

into air, otherwise than by preconcerted arrangement, he boldly taxed

Beatrice on the subject.

 

Beatrice looked very demure; declared that no one in the house had

quarrelled with Mary; confessed that it had been thought prudent that

she should for a while stay away from Greshamsbury; and, of course,

ended by telling her brother everything, including all the scenes

that had passed between Mary and herself.

 

“It is out of the question your thinking of marrying her, Frank,”

said she. “You must know that nobody feels it more strongly than

poor Mary herself;” and Beatrice looked the very personification of

domestic prudence.

 

“I know nothing of the kind,” said he, with the headlong imperative

air that was usual with him in discussing matters with his sisters.

“I know nothing of the kind. Of course I cannot say what Mary’s

feelings may be: a pretty life she must have had of it among you. But

you may be sure of this, Beatrice, and so may my mother, that nothing

on earth shall make me give her up—nothing.” And Frank, as he made

the protestation, strengthened his own resolution by thinking of all

the counsel that Miss Dunstable had given him.

 

The brother and sister could hardly agree, as Beatrice was dead

against the match. Not that she would not have liked Mary Thorne for

a sister-in-law, but that she shared to a certain degree the feeling

which was now common to all the Greshams—that Frank must marry

money. It seemed, at any rate, to be imperative that he should either

do that or not marry at all. Poor Beatrice was not very mercenary

in her views: she had no wish to sacrifice her brother to any

Miss Dunstable; but yet she felt, as they all felt—Mary Thorne

included—that such a match as that, of the young heir with the

doctor’s niece, was not to be thought of;—not to be spoken of as

a thing that was in any way possible. Therefore, Beatrice, though

she was Mary’s great friend, though she was her brother’s favourite

sister, could give Frank no encouragement. Poor Frank! circumstances

had made but one bride possible to him: he must marry money.

 

His mother said nothing to him on the subject: when she learnt that

the affair with Miss Dunstable was not to come off, she merely

remarked that it would perhaps be best for him to return to Cambridge

as soon as possible. Had she spoken her mind out, she would probably

have also advised him to remain there as long as possible. The

countess had not omitted to write to her when Frank left Courcy

Castle; and the countess’s letter certainly made the anxious mother

think that her son’s education had hardly yet been completed. With

this secondary object, but with that of keeping him out of the way of

Mary Thorne in the first place, Lady Arabella was now quite satisfied

that her son should enjoy such advantages as an education completed

at the university might give him.

 

With his father Frank had a long conversation; but, alas! the gist of

his father’s conversation was this, that it behoved him, Frank, to

marry money. The father, however, did not put it to him in the cold,

callous way in which his lady-aunt had done, and his lady-mother.

He did not bid him go and sell himself to the first female he could

find possessed of wealth. It was with inward self-reproaches, and

true grief of spirit, that the father told the son that it was not

possible for him to do as those may do who are born really rich, or

really poor.

 

“If you marry a girl without a fortune, Frank, how are you to live?”

the father asked, after having confessed how deep he himself had

injured his own heir.

 

“I don’t care about money, sir,” said Frank. “I shall be just as

happy as if Boxall Hill had never been sold. I don’t care a straw

about that sort of thing.”

 

“Ah! my boy; but you will care: you will soon find that you do care.”

 

“Let me go into some profession. Let me go

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