‘Am I not still your child?’ said Hester, going down on her knees with her hands in her mother’s lap and her eyes turned up to her mother’s face.

’No.  You are not mine any longer.  You are his.  You are that man’s wife.  When he bids you do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, you must do it.  And he will bid you.  You are not my child now.  As days run on and sins grow black I cannot warn you now against the wrath to come.  But though you are not my child, though you are this man’s wife, I will pray for you.’

‘And for him?’

’I do not know.  I cannot say.  Who am I that I should venture to pray specially for a stranger?  That His way may be shown to all sinners;—­thus will I pray for him.  And it will be shown.  Though whether he will walk in it,—­who can say that?’ So much was true of John Caldigate, no doubt, and is true of all; but there was a tone in her voice which implied that in regard to this special sinner there could be very little hope indeed.

‘Why should you think that he is bad, mamma?’

’We are all bad.  There is no doubt about his being bad.  There is not one among us fit to sweep the lowest step of God’s throne.  But they who are His people shall be made bright enough to sit round His feet.  May the time come when you, my darling, shall be restored to the fold.’  The poor young wife by this time had acknowledged to herself the mistake she had made in thus coming to her mother after her marriage.  She now was of course in that ecstatic phase of existence which makes one’s own self altogether subordinate to the self of another person.  That her husband should be happy constituted her hope of happiness; that he should be comfortable, her comfort.  If he were thought worthy, that would be her worthiness; or if he were good, that would be her goodness.  And even as to those higher, more distant aspirations, amidst which her mother was always dwelling, she would take no joy for herself which did not include him.  The denunciations against him which were so plainly included even in her mother’s blessings and prayers for herself, did not frighten her on behalf of the man to whom she had devoted herself.  She could see the fanaticism and fury of her mother’s creed.  But she could not escape from the curse of the moment.  When that last imprecation was made by the woman, with her hands folded and her eyes turned up to heaven, Hester could only bury her face on her mother’s knees and weep.  ’When that time comes, and I know it will come, you shall return to me, and once more be my child,’ said the mother.

‘You do not mean that I shall leave my husband?’

’Who can tell?  If you do, and I am living, you shall be my child.  Till then we must be apart.  How can it be otherwise?  Can I give my cheek to a man to be kissed, and call him my son, when I think that he has robbed me of my only treasure?’