‘If I were Darvell I wouldn’t take wages from such a skunk as you,’ said Crinkett.  ’A man as has robbed his partners of every shilling, and has married a young lady when he has got another wife living out in the colony.  At least she was out in the colony.  She ain’t there now, Darvell.  She’s somewhere else now.  That’s what your master is, Darvell.  You’ll have to look out for a place, because your master’ll be in quod before long.  How much is it they gets for bigamy, Jack?  Three years at the treadmill;—­that’s about it.  But I pities the young lady and the poor little bastard.’

What was he to do?  A sense of what was fitting for his wife rather than for himself forbade him to fly at the man and take him by the throat.  And now, of course, the wretched story would be told through all Cambridgeshire.  Nothing could prevent that now.  ‘Darvell,’ he said, as he turned towards the hall steps, ’you must see these men off the premises.  The less you say to them the better.’

‘We’ll only just tell him all about it as we goes along comfortable,’ said Adamson.  Darvell, who was a good sort of man in his way,—­slow rather than stupid, weighted with the ordinary respect which a servant has for his master,—­had heard it all, but showed no particular anxiety to hear more.  He accompanied the men down to the Causeway, hardly opening his mouth to them, while they were loud in denouncing the meanness of the man who had deserted a wife in Australia, and had then betrayed a young lady here in England.

‘What were they talking about?’ said his wife to him when they were alone.  ‘I heard their voices even here.’

‘They were threatening me;—­threatening me and you.’

‘About that woman?’

’Yes; about that woman.  Not that they have dared yet to mention her name,—­but it was about that woman.’

‘And she?’

’I’ve heard nothing from her since that letter.  I do not know that she is in England, but I suppose that she is with them.’

‘Does it make you unhappy, John?’

‘Very unhappy.’

‘Does it frighten you?’

’Yes.  It makes me fear that you for a while will be made miserable,—­you whom I had thought that I could protect from all sorrow and from all care!  O my darling! of course it frightens me; but it is for you.’

‘What will they do first, John?’

’They have already said words before the man there which will of course be spread about the country.’

‘What words?’

Then he paused, but after pausing he spoke very plainly.  ’They said that you were not my wife.’

‘But I am.’

‘Indeed you are.’

‘Tell me all truly.  Though I were not, I would still be true to you.’

’But, Hester,—­Hester, you are.  Do not speak as though that were possible.’

’I know that you love me.  I am sure of that.  Nothing should ever make me leave you;—­nothing.  You are all the world to me now.  Whatever you may have done I will be true to you.  Only tell me everything.’