‘Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed Sir Roger, lustily, as Dr Thorne entered the room. ‘Well, if that ain’t rich, I don’t know what is. Ha! ha! ha! But why didn’t they put him under the pump, doctor?’

The doctor, however, had too much tact, and too many things of importance to say, to allow of his giving up much time to the discussion of Dr Fillgrave’s wrath. He had come determined to open the baronet’s eyes as to what would be the real effect of his will, and he had also to negotiate a loan for Mr Gresham, if that might be possible. Dr Thorne therefore began about the loan, that being the easier subject, and found that Sir Roger was quite clear-headed as to his many money concerns, in spite of his illness. Sir Roger was willing enough to lend Mr Gresham more money — six, eight, ten, twenty thousand; but then, in doing so, he should insist on possession of the title-deeds.

‘What! the title-deeds of Greshamsbury for a few thousand pounds?’ said the doctor.

‘I don’t know whether you call ninety thousand pounds a few thousands; but the debt will about amount to that.’

‘Ah! that’s the old debt.’

‘Old and new together, of course; every shilling I lend more weakens my security for what I have lent before.’

‘But you have the first claim, Sir Roger.’

‘It ought to be first and last to cover such a debt as that. If he wants further accommodation, he must part with his deeds, doctor.’

The point was argued backwards and forwards for some time without avail, and the doctor then thought it well to introduce the other subject.

‘Sir Roger, you’re a hard man.’

‘No I ain’t,’ said Sir Roger; ‘not a bit hard; that is, not a bit too hard. Money is always hard. I know I found it hard to come by; and there is no reason why Squire Gresham should expect to find me so very soft.’

‘Very well; there is an end of that. I thought you would have done as much to oblige me, that is all.’

‘What! take bad security too oblige you?’

‘Well, there’s an end of that.’

‘I’ll tell you what; I’ll do as much to oblige a friend as any one. I’ll lend you five thousand pounds, you yourself, without security at all, if you want it.’

‘But you know I don’t want it; or, at any rate, shan’t take it.’

‘But to ask me to go on lending money to a third party, and he over head and ears in debt, by way of obliging you, why, it’s a little too much.’

‘Well, there’s and end of it. Now I’ve something to say to you about that will of yours.’

‘Oh! that’s settled.’

‘No, Scatcherd; it isn’t settled. It must be a great deal more settled before we have done with it, as you’ll find when you hear what I have to tell you.’

‘What you have to tell me!’ said Sir Roger, sitting up in bed; ‘and what have you to tell me?’

‘Your will says you sister’s eldest child.’

‘Yes; but that’s only in the event of Louis Philippe dying before he is twenty-five.’

‘Exactly; and now I know something about your sister’s eldest child, and, therefore, I have come to tell you.’

‘You know something about Mary’s eldest child?’

‘I do, Scatcherd; it is a strange story, and maybe it will make you angry. I cannot help it if it does so. I should not tell you this if I could avoid it; but as I do tell you, for your sake, as you will see, and not for my own, I must implore you not to tell my secret to others.’

Sir Roger now looked at him with an altered countenance. There was something in his voice of the authoritative tone of other days, something in the doctor’s look which had on the baronet the same effect which in former days it had sometimes had on the stone-mason.

‘Can you give me a promise, Scatcherd, that what I am about to tell you shall not be repeated?’

‘A promise! Well, I don’t know what it’s about, you know. I don’t like promises in the dark.’

‘Then I must leave it to your honour; for what I have to say must be said. You remember my brother, Scatcherd?’

Remember his brother! thought the rich man to himself. The name of the doctor’s brother had not been alluded to between them since the days of that trial; but still it was impossible but that Scatcherd should well remember him.

‘Yes, yes; certainly. I remember your brother,’ said he. ‘I remember him well; there’s no doubt about that.’

‘Well, Scatcherd,’ and, as he spoke, the doctor laid his hand with kindness on the other’s arm. ‘Mary’s eldest child was my brother’s child as well.

‘But there is no such child living,’ said Sir Roger; and, in his violence, as he spoke he threw from off him the bedclothes, and tried to stand up on the floor. He found, however, that he had no strength for such an effort, and was obliged to remain leaning on the bed and resting on the doctor’s arm.

‘There was no such child ever lived,’ said he. ‘What do you mean by this?’

Dr Thorne would say nothing further till he had got the man into bed again. This he at last affected, and then he went on with the story in his own way.

‘Yes, Scatcherd, that child is alive; and for fear that you should unintentionally make her your heir, I have thought it right to tell you this.’

‘A girl, is it?’

‘Yes, a girl.’

‘And why should you want to spite her? If she is Mary’s child, she is your brother’s child also. If she is my niece, she must be your niece also. Why should you want to spite her? Why should you try to do her such a terrible injury?’

‘I do not want to spite her.’

‘Where is she? Who is she? What is she called? Where does she live?’

The doctor did not at once answer all these questions. He had made up his mind that he would tell Sir Roger that this child was living, but he had not as yet resolved to make known all the circumstances of her history. He was not even yet quite aware whether it would be necessary to say that this foundling orphan was the cherished darling of his own house.

‘Such a child, is, at any rate, living,’ said he; ‘of that I give you my assurance; and under your will, as now worded, it might come to pass that that child should be your heir. I do not want to spite her, but I should be wrong to let you make your will without such knowledge, seeing that I am in possession of it myself.’

‘But where is the girl?’

‘I do not know that that signifies.’

‘Signifies! Yes; it does signify, 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 anyone else, if she’s 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 Scatcherd! 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. 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 is 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 soon say her as any of those others in America. What do I care about bloo............