Page:Doctor Thorne.djvu/121

Rh make up his mind to so much; but then, his way out of this dishonesty was not so easy for him to find. How should he set this matter right so as to inflict no injury on his niece, and no sorrow on himself—if that indeed could be avoided?

And then other thoughts crowded on his brain. He had always professed—professed at any rate to himself and to her—that of all the vile objects of a man's ambition, wealth, wealth merely for its own sake, was the vilest. They, in their joint school of inherent philosophy, had progressed to ideas which they might find it not easy to carry out, should they be called on by events to do so. And if this would have been difficult to either when acting on behalf of self alone, how much more difficult when one might have to act for the other! This difficulty had now come to the uncle. Should he, in this emergency, take upon himself to fling away the golden chance which might accrue to his niece if Scatcherd should be encouraged to make her partly his heir?

'He'd want her to go and live there—to live with him and his wife. All the money in the Bank of England would not pay her for such misery,' said the doctor to himself, as he slowly rode into his own yard.

On one point, and one only, had he definitely made up his mind. On the following day he would go over again to Boxall Hill, and would tell Scatcherd the whole truth. Come what might, the truth must be the best. And so, with some gleam of comfort, he went into the house, and found his niece in the drawing-room with Patience Oriel.

'Mary and I have been quarrelling,' said Patience. 'She says the doctor is the greatest man in a village; and I say the parson is, of course.'

'I only say that the doctor is the most looked after,' said Mary. 'There's another horrid message for you to go to Silverbridge, uncle. Why can't that Dr. Century manage his own people?'

'She says,' continued Miss Oriel, 'that if a parson was away for a month, no one would miss him; but that a doctor is so precious that his very minutes are counted.'

'I am sure uncle's are. They begrudge him his meals. Mr. Oriel never gets called away to Silverbridge.'

'No; we in the church manage our parish arrangements better than you do. We don't let strange practitioners in among our flocks because the sheep may chance to fancy them. Our sheep have to put up with our spiritual doses whether they like them or not. In that respect we are much the best off. I advise you, Mary, to marry a clergyman, by all means.'

'I will when you marry a doctor,' said she.

'I am sure nothing on earth would give me greater pleasure,'