Now the complaint of which the Lady Arabella was afraid, was cancer:  and her only present confidant in this matter was Dr Thorne.

The first of the Greshamsbury circle whom he saw was Beatrice, and he met her in the garden.

‘Oh, doctor,’ said she, ’where has Mary been this age?  She has not been up here since Frank’s birthday.’

’Well, that was only three days ago.  Why don’t you go down and ferret her out in the village?’

’So I have done.  I was there just now, and found her out.  She was out with Patience Oriel.  Patience is all and all with her now.  Patience is all very well, but if they throw me over—­’

‘My dear Miss Gresham, Patience is and always was a virtue.’

’A poor, beggarly, sneaking virtue after all, doctor.  They should have come up, seeing how deserted I am here.  There’s absolutely nobody left.’

‘Has Lady de Courcy gone?’

’Oh, yes!  All the De Courcys have gone.  I think, between ourselves, Mary stays away because she does not love them too well.  They have all gone, and taken Augusta and Frank with them.’

‘Has Frank gone to Courcy Castle?’

’Oh, yes; did you not hear?  There was rather a fight about it.  Master Frank wanted to get off, and was as hard to catch as an eel, and then the countess was offended; and papa said he didn’t see why Frank was to go if he didn’t like it.  Papa is very anxious about his degree, you know.’

The doctor understood it all as well as though it had been described to him at full length.  The countess had claimed her prey, in order that she might carry him off to Miss Dunstable’s golden embrace.  The prey, not yet old enough and wise enough to connect the worship of Plutus with that of Venus, had made sundry futile feints and dodges in the vain hope of escape.  Then the anxious mother had enforced the De Courcy behests with all a mother’s authority.  But the father, whose ideas on the subject of Miss Dunstable’s wealth had probably not been consulted, had, as a matter of course, taken exactly the other side of the question.  The doctor did not require to be told all this in order to know how the battle had raged.  He had not yet heard of the great Dunstable scheme; but he was sufficiently acquainted with Greshamsbury tactics to understand that the war had been carried on somewhat after this fashion.

As a rule, when the squire took a point warmly to heart, he was wont to carry his way against the De Courcy interest.  He could be obstinate enough when it so pleased him, and had before now gone so far as to tell his wife, that her thrice-noble sister-in-law might remain at home at Courcy Castle—­or, at any rate, not come to Greshamsbury—­if she could not do so without striving to rule him and every one else when she got here.  This had of course been repeated to the countess, who had merely replied to it by a sisterly whisper, in which she sorrowfully intimated that some men were born brutes, and always would remain so.