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Rh was rather red in the face, and his manner was fluttered. He had quite made up his mind to break the whole affair to his father; but he had hardly made up his mind as to the best mode of doing so.

'Good heavens, Frank! what do you mean? you are not going to do anything rash? What is it you mean, Frank?'

'I don't think it is rash,' said Frank.

'Sit down, my boy; sit down. What is it that you say you are going to do?'

'Nothing immediately, sir,' said he, rather abashed; 'but as I have made up my mind about Mary Thorne,—quite made up my mind, I think it right to tell you.'

'Oh, about Mary,' said the squire, almost relieved.

And then Frank, in voluble language, which he hardly, however, had quite under his command, told his father all that had passed between him and Mary. 'You see, sir,' said he, 'that it is fixed now, and cannot be altered. Nor must it be altered. You asked me to go away for twelve months, and I have done so. It has made no difference, you see. As to our means of living, I am quite willing to do anything that may be best and most prudent. I was thinking, sir, of taking a farm somewhere near here, and living on that.'

The squire sat quite silent for some moments after this communication had been made to him. Frank's conduct, as a son, had been such that he could not find fault with it; and, in this special matter of his love, how was it possible for him to find fault? He himself was almost as fond of Mary as of a daughter; and, though he too would have been desirous that his son should relieve the estate from its embarrassments by a rich marriage, he did not at all share Lady Arabella's feelings on the subject. No Countess de Courcy had ever engraved it on the tablets of his mind that the world would come to ruin if Frank did not marry money. Ruin there was, and would be, but it had been brought about by no sin of Frank's.

'Do you remember about her birth, Frank?' he said, at last.

'Yes, sir; everything. She told me all she knew; and Dr. Thorne finished the story.'

'And what do you think of it?'

'It is a pity, and a misfortune. It might, perhaps, have been a reason why you or my mother should not have had Mary in the house many years ago; but it cannot make any difference now.'

Frank had not meant to lean heavily on his father; but he did do so. The story had never been told to Lady Arabella; was not even known to her now, positively, and on good authority. But Mr. Gresham had always known it. If Mary's birth was so