explain to Scatcherd that the child had not lived.
There was a parting interview between the brother and sister in the
jail, during which, with real tears and unaffected sorrow, the mother
thus accounted for the offspring of her shame. Then she started,
fortunate in her coming fortunes; and the doctor took with him his
charge to the new country in which they were both to live. There he
found for her a fitting home till she should be old enough to sit
at his table and live in his bachelor house; and no one but old Mr
Gresham knew who she was, or whence she had come.

Then Roger Scatcherd, having completed his six months' confinement,
came out of prison.

Roger Scatcherd, though his hands were now red with blood, was to be
pitied. A short time before the days of Henry Thorne's death he had
married a young wife in his own class of life, and had made many
resolves that henceforward his conduct should be such as might become
a married man, and might not disgrace the respectable brother-in-law
he was about to have given him. Such was his condition when he first
heard of his sister's plight. As has been said, he filled himself
with drink and started off on the scent of blood.

During his prison days his wife had to support herself as she might.
The decent articles of furniture which they had put together were
sold; she gave up their little house, and, bowed down by misery, she
also was brought near to death. When he was liberated he at once got
work; but those who have watched the lives of such people know how
hard it is for them to recover lost ground. She became a mother
immediately after his liberation, and when her child was born they
were in direst want; for Scatcherd was again drinking, and his
resolves were blown to the wind.

The doctor was then living at Greshamsbury. He had gone over there
before the day on which he undertook the charge of poor Mary's baby,
and soon found himself settled as the Greshamsbury doctor. This
occurred very soon after the birth of the young heir. His predecessor
in this career had "bettered" himself, or endeavoured to do so, by
seeking the practice of some large town, and Lady Arabella, at a very
critical time, was absolutely left with no other advice than that of
a stranger, picked up, as she declared to Lady de Courcy, somewhere
about Barchester jail, or Barchester court-house, she did not know
which.

Of course Lady Arabella could not suckle the young heir herself.
Ladies Arabella