"What answer ought I to make to it?" demanded Frank, with energy.
"You see, Frank, I have never interfered in this matter, otherwise than to tell you the whole truth about Mary's birth."
"Oh, but you must interfere: you should say what you think."
"Circumstanced as you are now—that is, just at the present moment—you could hardly marry immediately."
"Why not let me take a farm? My father could, at any rate, manage a couple of thousand pounds or so for me to stock it. That would not be asking much. If he could not give it me, I would not scruple to borrow so much elsewhere." And Frank bethought him of all Miss Dunstable's offers.
"Oh, yes; that could be managed."
"Then why not marry immediately; say in six months or so? I am not unreasonable; though, Heaven knows, I have been kept in suspense long enough. As for her, I am sure she must be suffering frightfully. You know her best, and, therefore, I ask you what answer I ought to make: as for myself, I have made up my own mind; I am not a child, nor will I let them treat me as such."
Frank, as he spoke, was walking rapidly about the room; and he brought out his different positions, one after the other, with a little pause, while waiting for the doctor's answer. The doctor was sitting, with the letter still in his hands, on the head of the sofa, turning over in his mind the apparent absurdity of Frank's desire to borrow two thousand pounds for a farm, when, in all human probability, he might in a few months be in possession of almost any sum he should choose to name. And yet he would not tell him of Sir Roger's will. "If it should turn out to be all wrong?" said he to himself.
"Do you wish me to give her up?" said Frank, at last.
"No. How can I wish it? How can I expect a better match for her? Besides, Frank, I love no man in the world so well as I do you."