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One might have thought that she was twenty years older than when Dr Thorne last saw her. He drew a chair to her side, and sitting by her, took her hand in his. "It is better so, Lady Scatcherd; better so," he repeated. "The poor lad's doom had been spoken, and it is well for him, and for you, that it should be over." "They are both gone now," said she, speaking very low; "both gone now.
"I will do what I can," said the doctor. "What I can do I will do. But he is not a child, Scatcherd: at his age he must stand or fall mainly by his own conduct. The best thing for him will be to marry." "Exactly; that's just it, Thorne: I was coming to that. If he would marry, I think he would do well yet, for all that has come and gone.
And then he was called on to compare, as it were, the prospects of this unfortunate with those of his own darling; to contrast all that was murky, foul, and disheartening, with all that was perfect for to him she was all but perfect; to liken Louis Scatcherd to the angel who brightened his own hearthstone. How could he answer to such an appeal?
But how would it be if she were taken to Boxall Hill, even as a recognised niece of the rich man there? Would Patience Oriel and Beatrice Gresham go there after her? Could she be happy there as she is in my house here, poor though it be? It would kill her to pass a month with Lady Scatcherd and put up with that man's humours, to see his mode of life, to be dependent on him, to belong to him."
Soon after the trial Scatcherd had begun to rise, and his first savings had been entrusted to the doctor's care. This had been the beginning of a pecuniary connexion which had never wholly ceased, and which had led to the purchase of Boxall Hill, and to the loan of large sums of money to the squire.
"Oh, Dr Thorne!" said the wife, looking wildly up into her companion's face, though she hardly yet realised the meaning of what he said, although her senses were half stunned by the blow. "Dear Lady Scatcherd, is it not better that I should tell you the truth?" "Oh, I suppose so; oh yes, oh yes; ah me! ah me! ah me!"
Mary had listened to all this eloquence, not perhaps with inattention, but without much reply. She had not been exactly sorry to hear Frank talked about; indeed, had she been so minded, she could herself have said something on the same subject; but she did not wish to take Lady Scatcherd altogether into her confidence, and she had been unable to say much about Frank Gresham without doing so.
"Oh, she did very well at last, as Sir Roger did himself; but in early life she was very unfortunate just at the time of my marriage with dear Roger ," and then, just as she was about to commence so much as she knew of the history of Mary Scatcherd, she remembered that the author of her sister-in-law's misery had been a Thorne, a brother of the doctor; and, therefore, as she presumed, a relative of her guest; and suddenly she became mute.
A contest ensued, which ended in Scatcherd keeping his word at any rate, as regarded the worst offender. How the fatal blow on the temple was struck was never exactly determined: one medical man said it might have been done in a fight with a heavy-headed stick; another thought that a stone had been used; a third suggested a stone-mason's hammer.
On this day, the evening before Mr Gazebee's visit, Sir Louis condescended to come down to dinner. He dined, however, tete-a-tete with the doctor. Mary was not there, nor was anything said as to her absence. Sir Louis Scatcherd never set eyes upon her again.
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