Page:Doctor Thorne.djvu/156

152 'Of course it will be very inexpedient that the young people should be thrown together again;—for the present, I mean.'

'Well!'

'Frank has now gone to Courcy Castle; and he talks of going from thence to Cambridge. But he will doubtless be here, backwards and forwards; and perhaps it will be better for all parties—safer, that is, doctor—if Miss Thorne were to discontinue her visits to Greshamsbury for a while.'

'Very well!' thundered out the doctor. 'Her visits to Greshamsbury shall be discontinued.'

'Of course, doctor, this won't change the intercourse between us; between you and the family.'

'Not change it!' said he. 'Do you think that I will break bread in a house from whence she has been ignominiously banished? Do you think that I can sit down in friendship with those who have spoken of her as you have now spoken? You have many daughters; what would you say if I accused one of them as you have accused her?'

'Accused, doctor! No, I don't accuse her. But prudence, you know, does sometimes require us—'

'Very well; prudence requires you to look after those who belong to you; and prudence also requires me to look after my one lamb. Good morning, Lady Arabella.'

'But, doctor, you are not going to quarrel with us? You will come when we want you; eh! won't you?'

Quarrel! quarrel with Greshamsbury! Angry as he was, the doctor felt that he could ill bear to quarrel with Greshamsbury. A man past fifty cannot easily throw over the ties that have taken twenty years to form, and wrench himself away from the various close ligatures with which, in such a period, he has become bound. He could not quarrel with the squire; he could ill bear to quarrel with Frank; though he now began to conceive that Frank had used him badly, he could not do so; he could not quarrel with the children, who had almost been born into his arms; nor even with the very walls, and trees, and grassy knolls with which he was so dearly intimate. He could not proclaim himself an enemy to Greshamsbury; and yet he felt that fealty to Mary required of him that, for the present, he should put on an enemy's guise.

'If you want me, Lady Arabella, and send for me, I will come to you; otherwise I will, if you please, share the sentence which has been passed on Mary. I will now wish you good morning.' And then, bowing low to her, he left the room and the house, and sauntered slowly away to his own home.

What was he to say to Mary? He walked very slowly down