‘Why not?  Why should you not go out to Folking?’

’Simply because I may have to take an active part against you.  I do not suppose it will come to that, but it is possible.  I need not say that I trust there may be nothing of the kind, but I cannot be sure.  It is on the cards.’

’I think that is a hard judgment.  Do you mean to say that you believe that woman’s statement not only against mine, but against the whole tenor of my life and character?’

’No; I do not believe the woman’s statement.  If I did, I should not be talking to you now.  The woman has probably lied, and is probably a tool in the hands of others for raising money, as you have already suggested.  But, according to your own showing there has been much in your life to authorise the statement.  I do not know what does or does not constitute a marriage there.’

‘The laws are the same as ours.’

’There at any rate you are wrong.  Their marriage laws are not the same as ours, though how they may differ you and I probably do not accurately know.  And they may be altered at any time as they may please.  Let the laws be what they will, it is quite possible, after what you have told me, that they may bring up evidence which you would find it very difficult to refute.  I don’t think it will be so.  If I did I should use all my influence to remove my sister at once.’

‘You couldn’t do it,’ said Caldigate, very angrily.

’I tell you what I should endeavour to do.  You must excuse me if I stand aloof just at present.  I don’t suppose you can defend such a condition of things as you described to me the other day.’

‘I do not mean to be put upon my defence,—­at any rate by you,’ said Caldigate, very angrily.  And then he left the office.

He had come into Cambridge with the intention of calling at Puritan Grange after he had left the attorney, and when he found himself in the street he walked on in the direction of Chesterton.  He had wished to thank his wife’s mother for her concession and had been told by Hester that if he would call, Mrs. Bolton would certainly see him now.  Had there been no letter from the woman in Australia, he would probably not have obeyed his wife’s behest in this matter.  His heart and spirit would then have been without a flaw, and, proud in his own strength and his own rectitude, he would have declared to himself that the absurd prejudices of a fanatic woman were beneath his notice.  But that letter had been a blow, and the blow, though it had not quelled him, had weakened his forces.  He could conceal the injury done him even from his wife, but there was an injury.  He was not quite the man that he had been before.  From day to day, and from hour to hour, he was always remonstrating with himself because it was so.  He was conscious that in some degree he had been cowed, and was ever fighting against the feeling.  His tenderness to his wife was perhaps increased, because he knew that she still suffered