but if--"

"Mr Gresham, I would not for worlds be the cause of any
unpleasantness between you and him."

"But I cannot bear to think that we have banished you, Mary."

"It cannot be helped. Things will all come right in time."

"But you will be so lonely here."

"Oh! I shall get over all that. Here, you know, Mr Gresham, 'I am
monarch of all I survey;' and there is a great deal in that."

The squire did not quite catch her meaning, but a glimmering of it
did reach him. It was competent to Lady Arabella to banish her from
Greshamsbury; it was within the sphere of the squire's duties to
prohibit his son from an imprudent match; it was for the Greshams to
guard their Greshamsbury treasure as best they could within their
own territories: but let them beware that they did not attack her on
hers. In obedience to the first expression of their wishes, she had
submitted herself to this public mark of their disapproval because
she had seen at once, with her clear intellect, that they were only
doing that which her conscience must approve. Without a murmur,
therefore, she consented to be pointed at as the young lady who had
been turned out of Greshamsbury because of the young squire. She had
no help for it. But let them take care that they did not go beyond
that. Outside those Greshamsbury gates she and Frank Gresham, she
and Lady Arabella met on equal terms; let them each fight their own
battle.

The squire kissed her forehead affectionately and took his leave,
feeling, somehow, that he had been excused and pitied, and made much
of; whereas he had called on his young neighbour with the intention
of excusing, and pitying, and making much of her. He was not
quite comfortable as he left the house; but, nevertheless, he was
sufficiently honest-hearted to own to himself that Mary Thorne was a
fine girl. Only that it was so absolutely necessary that Frank should
marry money--and only, also, that poor Mary was such a birthless
foundling in the world's esteem--only, but for these things, what a
wife she would have made for that son of his!

To one person only did she talk freely on the subject, and that one
was Patience Oriel; and even with her the freedom was rather of the
mind than of the heart. She never said a word of her feeling with
reference to Frank, but she said much of her position in the village,
and of the necessity she was under to keep out of the way.

"It is very hard," said Patience, "that the offence should be