‘But we can’t lock her up,’ said the old man.

’Practically you can.  Take her bonnet away,—­or whatever she came in.  Don’t let there be a vehicle to carry her back.  Let the keys be turned if it be necessary.  The servants must know of course what you are doing; but they will probably be on your side.  I don’t mean to say that if she be resolute to escape at any cost you can prevent her.  But probably she will not be resolute like that.  It requires a deal of resolution for a young woman to show herself in the streets alone in so wretched a plight as hers.  It depends on her disposition.’

‘She is very determined,’ said Hester’s mother.

‘And you can be equally so.’  To this assertion Mrs. Bolton assented with a little nod.  ’You can only try it.  It is one of those cases in which, unfortunately, publicity cannot be avoided.  We have to do the best we can for her, poor dear, according to our conscience.  I should induce her to come on a visit to her mother, and then I should, if possible, detain her.’

It was thus that William Bolton gave his advice; and as Robert Bolton assented, it was determined that this should be the line of action.  Nor can it be said that they were either cruel or unloving in their projected scheme.  Believing as they did that the man was not her husband, it must be admitted that it was their duty to take her away from him if possible.  But it was not probable that Hester herself would look upon their care of her in the same light.  She would beat herself against the bars of her cage; and even should she be prevented from escaping by the motives and reasons which William Bolton had suggested, she would not the less regard her father and mother as wicked tyrants.  The mother understood that very well.  And she, though she was hard to all the world besides, had never been hard to her girl.  No tenderest female bosom that ever panted at injustice done to her offspring was more full than hers of pity, love, and desire.  To save her Hester from sin and suffering she would willingly lay down her life.  And she knew that in carrying out the scheme that had been proposed she must appear to her girl to be an enemy,—­to be the bitterest of all enemies!  I have seen a mother force open the convulsively closed jaws of her child in order that some agonising torture might be applied,—­which, though agonising, would tend to save her sick infant’s life.  She did it though, the child shrank from her as from some torturing fiend.  This mother resolved that she would do the same,—­though her child, too, should learn to hate her.

William Bolton undertook to go out to Folking and give the invitation by which she was to be allured to come to Puritan Grange,—­only for a day and night if longer absence was objectionable; only for a morning visit, if no more could be achieved.  It was all treachery and falsehood;—­a doing of certain evil that possible good might come from it.  ‘She will hate me for ever, but yet it ought to be done,’ said William Bolton; who was a good man, an excellent husband and father, and regarded in his own profession as an honourable trustworthy man.