also to a wicket-gate which led out into the village, and which could be opened from the inside, was a seat, under a big yew-tree, from which, through a breach in the houses, might be seen the parish church, standing in the park on the other side. Hither Mary walked alone, and here she seated herself, determined to get rid of her tears and their traces before she again showed herself to the world.
'I shall never be happy here again,' said she to herself; 'never. I am no longer one of them, and I cannot live among them unless I am so.' And then an idea came across her mind that she hated Patience Oriel; and then, instantly another idea followed it—quick as such thoughts are quick—that she did not hate Patience Oriel at all; that she liked her, nay, loved her; that Patience Oriel was a sweet girl; and that she hoped the time would come when she might see her the lady of Greshamsbury. And then the tear, which had been no whit controlled, which indeed had now made itself master of her, came to a head, and, bursting through the floodgates of the eye, came rolling down, and in its fall, wetted her hand as it lay on her lap. 'What a fool! what an idiot! what an empty-headed cowardly fool I am!' said she, springing up from the bench on her feet.
As she did so, she heard voices close to her, at the little gate. They were those of her uncle and Frank Gresham.
'God bless you, Frank!' said the doctor, as he passed out of the grounds. 'You will excuse a lecture, won't you, from so old a friend?—though you are a man now, and discreet, of course, by act of parliament.'
'Indeed I will, doctor,' said Frank. 'I will excuse a longer lecture than that from you.'
'At any rate it won't be to-night,' said the doctor, as he disappeared. 'And if you see Mary, tell her that I am obliged to go; and that I will send Janet down to fetch her.'
Now Janet was the doctor's ancient maidservant.
Mary could not move on without being perceived; she therefore stood still till she heard the click of the door, and then began walking rapidly back to the house by the path which had brought her thither. The moment, however, that she did so, she found that she was followed; and in a very few minutes Frank was alongside of her.
'Oh, Mary!' said he, calling to her, but not loudly, before he quite overtook her, 'how odd that I should come across you just when I have a message for you! and why are you all alone?'
Mary's first impulse was to reiterate her command to him to call her no more by her Christian name; but her second impulse told her that such an injunction at the present moment would not
