‘What is it you would say?’ This Hester asked with a low hoarse voice and a stern look, as though she could not resist her mother’s prayer for the privilege of speaking; but at the same time was resolutely prepared not to be turned a hair’s-breadth by anything that might be said.

‘Not a word about him.’

’No, mamma; no.  Unless you can tell me that you will love him as your son-in-law.’

‘Not a word about him,’ she repeated, in a harsher voice.  She felt that that promise should have been enough, and that in the present circumstances she should not have been invited to love the man she hated.  ’Your father and I wish you for the next few months to come and live with us.’

‘It is quite impossible,’ said Hester, standing very upright, with a face altogether unlike that she had worn when kneeling at her mother’s knees.

‘You should listen to me.’

‘Yes, I will listen.’

‘There will be a trial.’

’Undoubtedly.  John, at least, seems to think so.  It is possible that these wicked people may give it up, or that they may have no money to go on; but I suppose there will be a trial.’

‘The woman has bound herself to prosecute him.’

’Because she wants to get money.  But we need not discuss that, mamma.  John thinks that there will be a trial.’

’Till that is over, will you not be better away from him?  How will it be with you if it should be decided that he is not your husband?’ Here Hester of course prepared herself for interruption, but her mother prayed for permission to continue.

‘Listen to me for one moment, Hester.’

‘Very well, mamma.  Go on.’

’How would it be with you in that case?  You must be separated then.  As that is possible, is it not right that you should obey the ordinances of God and man, and keep yourself apart till they who are in authority shall have spoken?’

‘There are no such ordinances.’

’There are indeed.  If you were to ask all your friends, all the married women in Cambridgeshire, what would they say?  Would they not all tell you that no woman should live with a man while there is a shadow of doubt?  And as to the law of God, you know God’s law, and can only defend yourself by your own certainty as to a matter respecting which all others are uncertain.  You think yourself certain because such certainty is a way to yourself out of your present misery.’

‘It is for my child,’ she shouted; ‘and for him.’

’As for your babe, your darling babe, whether he be yours in joy of heart or in agony of spirit, he is still yours.  No one will rob you of him.  If it be as we fear, would not I help you to love him, help you to care for him, help you to pray for him?  If it were so, would I desert him or you because in your innocence you had been betrayed into misfortune?  Do I not feel for your child?  But when he grows up and is a man, and will have learned the facts of his early years, let him be able to tell himself that his mother though unfortunate was pure.’