After some further slight delay, the doctor got up, and did go upstairs.  He, even, was half afraid of the task.  ‘It must be done,’ he said to himself, as his heavy steps mounted the stairs.  ‘But how to tell it?’

When he entered, Mary was standing half-way up the room, as though she had risen to meet him.  Her face was troubled, and her eyes were almost wild.  The emotion, the hopes, the fears of the morning had almost been too much for her.  She had heard the murmuring of the voices in the room below, and had known that one of them was that of her lover.  Whether that discussion was to be for her good or ill she did not know; but she felt that further suspense would almost kill her.  ’I could wait for years,’ she said to herself, ’if I did but know.  If I lost him, I suppose I should bear it, if I did but know.’—­Well; she was going to know.

Her uncle met her in the middle of the room.  His face was serious, though not sad; too serious to confirm her hopes at that moment of doubt.  ‘What is it, uncle?’ she said, taking one of his hands between both of her own.  ‘What is it?  Tell me.’  And as she looked up into his face with her wild eyes, she almost frightened him.

‘Mary,’ he said gravely, ’you have heard much, I know of Sir Roger Scatcherd’s great fortune.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’

‘Now that poor Sir Louis is dead—­’

‘Well, uncle, well?’

‘It has been left—­’

‘To Frank! to Mr Gresham, to the squire!’ exclaimed Mary, who felt, with an agony of doubt, that this sudden accession of immense wealth might separate her still further from her lover.

‘No, Mary, not to the Greshams; but to yourself.’

‘To me!’ she cried, and putting both her hands to her forehead, she seemed to be holding her temples together.  ‘To me!’

’Yes, Mary; it is all your own now.  To do as you like best with it all—­all.  May God, in His mercy, enable you to bear the burden, and lighten for you the temptation!’

She had so far moved as to find the nearest chair, and there she was now seated, staring at her uncle with fixed eyes.  ‘Uncle,’ she said, ’what does it mean?’ Then he came, and sitting beside her, he explained, as best he could, the story of her birth, and her kinship with the Scatcherds.  ‘And where is he, uncle?’ she said.  ’Why does he not come to me?’

’I wanted him to come, but her refused.  They are both there now, the father and son; shall I fetch them?’

‘Fetch them! whom?  The squire?  No, uncle; but may we go to them?’

‘Surely, Mary.’

‘But, uncle—­’

‘Yes, dearest.’

’Is it true? are you sure?  For his sake, you know; not for my own.  The squire, you know—­Oh, uncle!  I cannot go.’

‘They shall come to you.’

No—­no.  I have gone to him such hundreds of times; I will never allow that he shall be sent to me.  But, uncle, is it true?’