’Drop his name!  I will never drop it.  I cannot drop it.  It is mine.  I could not make myself anything but Mrs. John Caldigate if I would.  And he,’ she said, taking the baby up from its cradle and pressing it to her bosom, ’he shall be Daniel Caldigate to the day of his death.  Do you think that I will take a step that shall look like robbing my child of his honest name,—­that will seem to imply a doubt that he is not his own father’s honest boy,—­that he is not a fitting heir to the property which his forefathers have owned so long?  Never!  They may call me what name they will, but I will call myself John Caldigate’s wife as long as I have a voice to make myself heard.’

It was the same protest over and over again, and it was vain to answer.  ‘You will not stay under your father’s roof?’

‘No; I have to live under my husband’s roof.’  Then Mrs. Bolton left the room, apparently in anger.  Though her heart within might be melting with ruth, still it was necessary that she should assume a look of anger.  On the morrow she would have to show herself angry with a vengeance, if she should then still be determined to carry out her plan.  And she thought that she was determined.  What had pity to do with it, or love, or moving heart-stirring words?  Were not all these things temptation from the Evil One, if they were allowed to interfere with the strict line of hard duty?  When she left the room, where the young mother was still standing with her baby in her arms, she doubted for some minutes,—­perhaps for some half-hour,—­then she wrestled with those emanations from the Evil One,—­with pity, with love, and suasive tenderness,—­and at last overcame them.  ‘I know I am pure,’ the daughter had said.  ‘I know I am right,’ said the mother.

But she spoke a word to her husband when he came home.  ’I cannot bend her; I cannot turn her, in the least.’

‘She will not stay?’

‘Not of her own accord.’

‘You have told her?’

‘Oh no; not till to-morrow.’

‘She ought to stay, certainly,’ said the father.  There had been very little intercourse between the mother and daughter during the afternoon, and while the three were sitting together, nothing was said about the morrow.  The evening would have seemed to be very sad and very silent, had they not all three been used to so many silent evenings in that room.  Hester, during her wedding tour and the few weeks of her happiness at Folking, before the trouble had come, had felt a new life and almost an ecstasy of joy in the thorough liveliness of her husband.  But the days of her old home were not so long ago that its old manners should seem strange to her.  She therefore sat out the hours patiently, stitching some baby’s ornament, till her mother told her that the time for prayer had come.  After worship her father called her out into the hall as he went up to his room.  ‘Hester,’ he said, ’it is not right that you should leave us to-morrow.’