When the baby was born, Scatcherd was still in prison, and had still three months' more confinement to undergo.
The story of her great wrongs and cruel usage was much talked of, and men said that one who had been so injured should be regarded as having in nowise sinned at all.
One man, at any rate, so thought.

At twilight, one evening, Thorne was surprised by a visit from a demure Barchester hardware dealer, whom he did not remember ever to have addressed before.

This was the former lover of poor Mary Scatcherd.

He had a proposal to make, and it was this:--if Mary would consent to leave the country at once, to leave it without notice from her brother, or talk or eclat on the matter, he would sell all that he had, marry her, and emigrate.
There was but one condition; she must leave her baby behind her.
The hardware-man could find it in his heart to be generous, to be generous and true to his love; but he could not be generous enough to father the seducer's child.
"I could never abide it, sir, if I took it," said he; "and she,--why in course she would always love it the best." In praising his generosity, who can mingle any censure for such manifest prudence?
He would still make her the wife of his bosom, defiled in the eyes of the world as she had been; but she must be to him the mother of his own children, not the mother of another's child.
And now again our doctor had a hard task to win through.

He saw at once that it was his duty to use his utmost authority to induce the poor girl to accept such an offer.