cherd! Mary what, then? You, with your d---- pride,
wouldn't let her be called Mary Thorne, I know."

This was too much for the doctor. He felt that there were tears in
his eyes, so he walked away to the window to dry them, unseen. Had he
had fifty names, each more sacred than the other, the most sacred of
them all would hardly have been good enough for her.

"Mary what, doctor? Come, if the girl is to belong to me, if I am to
provide for her, I must know what to call her, and where to look for
her."

"Who talked of your providing for her?" said the doctor, turning
round at the rival uncle. "Who said that she was to belong to you?
She will be no burden to you; you are only told of this that you
may not leave your money to her without knowing it. She is provided
for--that is, she wants nothing; she will do well enough; you need
not trouble yourself about her."

"But if she's Mary's child, Mary's child in real truth, I will
trouble myself about her. Who else should do so? For the matter of
that, I'd as soon say her as any of those others in America. What do
I care about blood? I shan't mind her being a bastard. That is to
say, of course, if she's decently good. Did she ever get any kind of
teaching; book-learning, or anything of that sort?"

Dr Thorne at this moment hated his friend the baronet with almost a
deadly hatred; that he, rough brute as he was--for he was a rough
brute--that he should speak in such language of the angel who gave to
that home in Greshamsbury so many of the joys of Paradise--that he
should speak of her as in some degree his own, that he should inquire
doubtingly as to her attributes and her virtues. And then the doctor
thought of her Italian and French readings, of her music, of her nice
books, and sweet lady ways, of her happy companionship with Patience
Oriel, and her dear, bosom friendship with Beatrice Gresham. He
thought of her grace, and winning manners, and soft, polished
feminine beauty; and, as he did so, he hated Sir Roger Scatcherd, and
regarded him with loathing, as he might have regarded a wallowing
hog.

At last a light seemed to break in upon Sir Roger's mind. Dr Thorne,
he perceived, did not answer his last question. He perceived, also,
that the doctor was affected with some more than ordinary emotion.
Why should it be that this subject of Mary Scatcherd's child moved
him so deeply? Sir Roger had never been at the doctor's house at
Greshamsbury, had never seen Mary Thorne,