Mark was some hours before he went to sleep.

The news that he had heard that evening was strange and startling.

Full of health and strength, the fact that he was not, as he had always supposed, the heir to the estate troubled him not at all.

The fact that in four years he would come in for some twelve thousand pounds was sufficient to prevent his feeling any uneasiness as to his future; and indeed in some respects it was not an unpleasant idea that, instead of being tied down to the estate, he should be able to wander at will, visit foreign countries, and make his own life.
In one respect he was sorry.

His father had in the last year hinted more than once that it would be a very nice arrangement if he were to make up a match with his ward; he had laughed, and said that there would be plenty of time for that yet.