'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 too. 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 possessed 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 gaol, 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?'
