a probable heiress!  It may be worth your son’s while to wait a little time, and not cast her off till he shall know whether she be an heiress or no.  If it shall turn out that she is rich, let him take her; if not, why, he can desert her then as well as now.’  He could not bring himself to put his niece into such a position as this.  He was anxious enough that she should be Frank Gresham’s wife, for he loved Frank Gresham; he was anxious enough, also, that she should give to her husband the means of saving the property of his family.  But Frank, though he might find her rich, was bound to take her while she was poor.

Then, also, he doubted whether he would be justified in speaking of this will at all.  He almost hated the will for the trouble and vexation it had given him, and the constant stress it had laid on his conscience.  He had spoken of it as yet to no one, and he thought that he was resolved not to do so while Sir Louis should yet be in the land of the living.

On reaching home, he found a note from Lady Scatcherd, informing him that Dr Fillgrave had once more been at Boxall Hill, and that, on this occasion, he had left the house without anger.

‘I don’t know what he has said about Louis,’ she added, ’for, to tell the truth, doctor, I was afraid to see him.  But he comes again to-morrow, and then I shall be braver.  But I fear that my poor boy is in a bad way.’

CHAPTER XLI

DOCTOR THORNE WON’T INTERFERE

At this period there was, as it were, a truce to the ordinary little skirmishes which had been so customary between Lady Arabella and the squire.  Things had so fallen out, that they neither of them had much spirit for a contest; and, moreover, on that point which at the present moment was most thought of by both of them, they were strangely in unison.  For each of them was anxious to prevent the threatened marriage of their only son.

It must, moreover, be remembered, that Lady Arabella had carried a great point in ousting Mr Yates Umbleby and putting the management of the estate into the hands of her own partisan.  But then the squire had not done less in getting rid of Fillgrave and reinstating Dr Thorne in possession of the family invalids.  The losses, therefore, had been equal; the victories equal; and there was a mutual object.

And it must be confessed, also, that Lady Arabella’s taste for grandeur was on the decline.  Misfortune was coming too near to her to leave her much anxiety for the gaieties of a London season.  Things were not faring well with her.  When her eldest daughter was going to marry a man of fortune, and a member of Parliament, she had thought nothing of demanding a thousand pounds or so for the extraordinary expenses incident to such an occasion.  But now, Beatrice was to become the wife of a parish parson, and even that was thought to be a fortunate event; she had, therefore, no heart for splendour.