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 any one else, if she is 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?"