It will not be imagined, at any rate by feminine readers, that Mary’s letter was written off at once, without alterations and changes, or the necessity for a fair copy. Letters from one young lady to another are doubtless written in this manner, and even with them it might sometimes be better if more patience had been taken; but with Mary’s first letter to her lover — her first love-letter, if love-letter it can be called-much more care was used. It was copied and re-copied, and when she returned from posting it, it was read and re-read.

‘It is very cold,’ she said to herself; ‘he will think I have no heart, that I have never loved him!’ And then she all but resolved to run down to the baker’s wife, and get back her letter, that she might alter it. ‘But it will be better so,’ she said again. ‘If I touched his feelings now, he would never bring himself to leave me. It is right that I should be cold with him. I should be false to myself if I tried to move his love — I, who have nothing to give him in return for it.’ And so she made no further visit to the post-office, and the letter went on its way.

We will now follow its fortunes for a short while, and explain how it was that Mary received no answer for a week; a week, it may well be imagined, of terrible suspense to her. When she took it to the post-office, she doubtless thought that the baker’s wife had nothing to do but to send it up to the house at Greshamsbury, and that Frank would receive it that evening, or, at latest, early on the following morning. But this was by no means so. The epistle was posted on a Friday afternoon, and it behoved the baker’s wife to send it into Silverbridge — Silverbridge being the post-town — so that all due formalities, as ordered by the Queen’s Government, might there be perfected. Now, unfortunately the post-boy had taken his departure before Mary reached the shop, and it was not, therefore, dispatched till Saturday. Sunday was always a dies non with the Greshamsbury Mercury, and, consequently, Frank’s letter was not delivered at the house till Monday morning; at which time Mary had for two long days been waiting with weary heart for the expected answer.

Now Frank had on that morning gone up to London by the early train, with his future brother-inlaw, Mr Oriel. In order to accomplish this, they had left Greshamsbury for Barchester exactly as the postboy was leaving Silverbridge for Greshamsbury.

‘I should like to wait for my letters,’ Mr Oriel had said, when the journey was being discussed.

‘Nonsense,’ Frank had answered. ‘Who ever got a letter that was worth waiting for?’ and so Mary was doomed to a week of misery.

When the post-bag arrived at the house on Monday morning it was opened as usual by the squire himself at the breakfast-table. ‘Here is a letter for Frank,’ said he, ‘posted in the village. You had better send it to him:’ and he threw the letter across to Beatrice.

‘It’s from Mary,’ said Beatrice, out loud, taking the letter up and examining the address. And having said so, she repented what she had done, as she looked first at her father and then at her mother.

A cloud came over the squire’s brow as for a minute he went on turning over the letters and newspapers. ‘Oh, from Mary Thorne, is it?’ he said. ‘Well, you had better send it to him.’

‘Frank said that if any letters came they were to be kept,’ said his sister Sophy. ‘He told me so particularly. I don’t think he likes having letters sent to him.’

‘You had better send that one,’ said the squire.

‘Mr Oriel is to have all his letters addressed to Long’s Hotel, Bond Street, and this one can very well be sent with them,’ said Beatrice, who knew all about it, and intended herself to make free use of the address.

‘Yes, you had better send it,’ said the squire; and then nothing further was said at the table. But Lady Arabella, though she said nothing, had not failed to mark what had passed. Had she asked for the letter before the squire, he would probably have taken possession of it himself; but as soon as she was alone with Beatrice, she did demand it, ‘I shall be writing to Frank himself,’ she said, ‘and will send it to him.’ And so, Beatrice, with a heavy heart, gave it up.

The letter lay before Lady Arabella’s eyes all that day, and many a wistful glance was cast at it. She turned it over and over, and much desired to know its contents; but she did not dare to break the seal of her son’s letter. All that day it lay upon her desk, and all the next, for she could hardly bring herself to part with it; but on the Wednesday it was sent — sent with these lines from herself:-

‘Dearest, dearest Frank, I send you a letter which has come by the post from Mary Thorne. I do not know what it may contain; but before you correspond with her, pray, pray think of what I said to you. For my sake, for your father’s, for your own, pray think of it.’

That was all, but it was enough to make her word to Beatrice true. She did send it to Frank enclosed in a letter from herself. We must reserve for the next chapter what had taken place between Frank and his mother; but, for the present, we will return to the doctor’s house.

Mary said not a word to him about the letter; but, keeping silent on the subject, she felt wretchedly estranged from him. ‘Is anything the matter, Mary?’ he said to her on the Sunday afternoon.

‘No, uncle,’ she answered, turning away her head to hide her tears.

‘Ah, but there is something; what is it, dearest?’

‘Nothing — that is, nothing that one can talk about.’

‘What Mary! Be unhappy and not to talk about it to me? That’s something new, is it not?’

‘One has presentiments sometimes, and is unhappy without knowing why. Besides, you know —’

‘I know! What do I know? Do I know anything that will make my pet happier?’ and he took her into his arms and they sat together on the sofa. Her tears were now falling fast, and she no longer made an effort to hide them. ‘Speak to me, Mary; this is something more than a presentiment. What is it?’

‘Oh, uncle —’

‘Come, love, speak to me; tell me why you are grieving.’

‘Oh, uncle, why have you not spoken to me? Why have you not told me what to do? Why have you not advised me? Why are you always so silent?’

‘Silent about what?’

‘You know, uncle; silent about him; silent about Frank.’

Why, indeed? What was he to say to this? It was true that he had never counselled her; never shown her what course she should take; had never even spoke to her about her lover. And it was equally true that he was not now prepared to do so, even in answer to such an appeal as this. He had a hope, a strong hope, more than a hope, that Mary’s love would yet be happy; but he could not express or explain his hope; nor could he even acknowledge to himself a wish that would seem to be based on the death of him to whose life he was bound, if possible, to preserve.

‘My love,’ he said, ‘it is a matter in which you must judge for yourself. Did I doubt your conduct, I should interfere; but I do not.’

‘Conduct! Is conduct everything? One may conduct oneself excellently, and yet break one’s heart.’

This was too much for the doctor; his sternness and firmness instantly deserted him. ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I will do anything that you would have me. If you wish it, I will make arrangements for leaving this place at once.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said, plaintively.

‘When you tell me of a broken heart, you almost break my own. Come to me, darling; do not leave me so. I will say all that I can say. I have thought, do still think, that circumstances will admit of your marriage with Frank if you both love each other, and can both be patient.’

‘You think so,’ said she, unconsciously sliding her hand into his, as though to thank him by its pressure for the comfort he was giving her.

‘I do think so now more than ever. But I only think so; I have been unable to assure you. There, darling, I must not say more; only that I cannot bear to see you grieving, I would not have said this:’ and then he left her, and nothing more was spoken on the subject.

If you can be patient! Why, a patience of ten years would be as nothing to her. Could she but live with the knowledge that she was first in his estimation, dearest in his heart; could it be also granted to her to feel that she was regarded as his equal, she could be patient for ever. What more did she want than to know and feel this? Patient, indeed!

But what could these circumstances be to which her uncle had alluded? ‘I do think that circumstances will admit of your marriage.’ Such was his opinion, and she had never known him to be wrong. Circumstances! What circumstances? Did he perhaps mean that Mr Gresham’s affairs were not so bad as they had been thought to be? If so, that alone would hardly alter the matter, for what could she give in return? ‘I would give him the world for one word of love,’ she said to herself, ‘and never think that he was my debtor. Ah! how beggarly the heart must be that speculates on such gifts as those!’

But there was her uncle’s opinion: he still thought that they might be married. Oh, why had she sent her letter? and why had she made it so cold? With such a letter as that before him, Frank could not do other than consent to her proposal. And then, why did he not at least answer it?

On the Sunday afternoon there arrived at Greshamsbury a man and a horse from Boxall Hill, bearing a letter from Lady Scatcherd to Dr Thorne, earnestly requesting the doctor’s immediate attendance. ‘I fear everything is over with poor Louis,’ wrote the unhappy mother. ‘It has been dreadful. Do come to me; I have no other friend, and I am nearly worn through with it. The man from the city’— she meant Dr Fillgrave —‘comes every day, and I dare say he is all very well, but he has never done much good. He has not had spirit enough to keep the bottle from him; and it was that, and that only, that most behoved to be done. I doubt you won’t find him in this world when you get here.’

Dr Thorne started immediately. Even though he might have to meet Dr Fillgrave, he could not hesitate, for he went not as a doctor to the dying man, but as the trustee under Sir Roger’s will. Moreover, as Lady Scatcherd had said, he was only her friend, and he could not desert her at such a moment for an army of Fillgraves. He told Mary he should not return that night; and taking with him a small saddle-bag, he started at once for Boxall Hill.

As he rode to the hall door, Dr Fillgrave was getting into his carriage. They had never met so as to speak to each other since that memorable day, when the............