y a great deal. But, Thorne, Thorne,
now that I remember it, now that I can think of things, it was--was
it not you yourself who told me that the baby did not live?"

"Very possibly."

"And was it a lie that you told me?"

"If so, yes. But it is no lie that I tell you now."

"I believed you then, Thorne; then, when I was a poor, broken-down
day-labourer, lying in jail, rotting there; but I tell you fairly, I
do not believe you now. You have some scheme in this."

"Whatever scheme I may have, you can frustrate by making another
will. What can I gain by telling you this? I only do so to induce you
to be more explicit in naming your heir."

They both remained silent for a while, during which the baronet
poured out from his hidden resource a glass of brandy and swallowed
it.

"When a man is taken aback suddenly by such tidings as these, he must
take a drop of something, eh, doctor?"

Dr Thorne did not see the necessity; but the present, he felt, was no
time for arguing the point.

"Come, Thorne, where is the girl? You must tell me that. She is my
niece, and I have a right to know. She shall come here, and I will do
something for her. By the Lord! I would as soon she had the money as
any one else, if she is anything of a good 'un;--some of it, that is.
Is she a good 'un?"

"Good!" said the doctor, turning away his face. "Yes; she is good
enough."

"She must be grown up by now. None of your light skirts, eh?"

"She is a good girl," said the doctor somewhat loudly and sternly. He
could hardly trust himself to say much on this point.

"Mary was a good girl, a very good girl, till"--and Sir Roger raised
himself up in his bed with his fist clenched, as though he were again
about to strike that fatal blow at the farm-yard gate. "But come,
it's no good thinking of that; you behaved well and manly, always.
And so poor Mary's child is alive; at least, you say so."

"I say so, and you may believe it. Why should I deceive you?"

"No, no; I don't see why. But then why did you deceive me before?"

To this the doctor chose to make no answer, and again there was
silence for a while.

"What do you call her, doctor?"

"Her name is Mary."

"The prettiest women's name going; there's no name like it," said the
contractor, with an unusual tenderness in his voice. "Mary--yes; but
Mary what? What other name does she go by?"

Here the doctor hesitated.

"Mary Scatcherd--eh?"

"No. Not Mary Scatcherd."

"Not Mary Scat