‘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.’