as long as he remained in that part of the world; and even the duke himself had desired Fothergill to manage it.
"He owes me an enormous sum of money," said the duke who held all Mr. Sowerby's title-deeds, "and I doubt whether the security will be sufficient."
"Your grace will find the security quite sufficient," said Mr. Fothergill; "but nevertheless it would be a good match."
"Very good," said the duke. And then it became Mr. Fothergill's duty to see that Mr. Sowerby and Miss Dunstable became man and wife as speedily as possible.
Some of the party, who were more wide awake than others, declared that he had made the offer; others, that he was just going to do so; and one very knowing lady went so far at one time as to say that he was making it at that moment. Bets also were laid as to the lady's answer, as to the terms of the settlement, and as to the period of the marriage,—of all which poor Miss Dunstable of course knew nothing.
Mr. Sowerby, in spite of the publicity of his proceedings, proceeded in the matter very well. He said little about it to those who joked with him, but carried on the fight with what best knowledge he had in such matters. But so much it is given to us to declare with certainty, that he had not proposed on the evening previous to the morning fixed for the departure of Mark Robarts.
During the last two days Mr. Sowerby's intimacy with Mark had grown warmer and warmer. He had talked to the vicar confidentially about the doings of these bigwigs now present at the castle, as though there were no other guest there with whom he could speak in so free a manner. He confided, it seemed, much more in Mark than in his brother-in-law, Harold Smith, or in any of his brother members of parliament, and had altogether opened his heart to him in this affair of his anticipated marriage. Now Mr. Sowerby was a man of mark in the world, and all this flattered our young clergyman not a little.
On that evening before Robarts went away Sowerby asked him to come up into his bedroom when the whole party was breaking up, and there got him into an easy-chair while he, Sowerby, walked up and down the room.
"You can hardly tell, my dear fellow," said he, "the state of nervous anxiety in which this puts me."
"Why don't you ask her and have done with it? She seems to me to be fond of your society."
"Ah, it is not that only; there are wheels within wheels;" and then he walked once or twice up and down the room, during which Mark thought that he might as well go to bed.
"Not that I mind telling you everything," said Sowerby. "I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it."
