As Mary matures, her interest in men grows, and she and Tom slip into an illicit relationship. Dick resents them. When she learns she is pregnant, Dick overhears and asks Mary if he is the father. He thinks if she is, she will have to devote something to him. Mary tells him another boy, Freddie Parr, is the father. Distraught at this information, Dick fights with a drunken Freddie, who is unable to swim, and pushes him into the river. Tom's father finds and pulls Freddie's body from the sluice, not realising that his drowning is not accidental. But that is the conclusion of the coroner's inquest. When Mary fails to provoke a miscarriage, she and Tom – who is the father of the child – go to an old crone for an abortion. Mary contracts septicaemia and later learns that she has been made sterile.