‘Does his word go for nothing?’

‘How can two persons’ words go for anything when obedience is concerned?  It is like God and Mammon.’

‘Hester!’

’If two people tell one differently, it must be right to cling to one and leave the other.  No man can serve two masters.  I have got to obey my husband.  Even were I to say that I would stay, he could come and take me away.’

‘He could not do that.’

’I shall not be so disobedient as to make it necessary The carriage will be here at twelve, and I shall go.  I had better go and help nurse to put the things up.’  So saying she left the room, but Mrs. Bolton remained there a while, sitting square and firm at the table.

It was not yet ten when she slowly followed her daughter up-stairs.  She first went into her own room for a moment, to collect her thoughts over again, and then she walked across the passage to her daughter’s chamber.  She knocked at the door, but entered as she knocked.  ‘Nurse,’ she said, ’will you go into my room for a minute or two?  I wish to speak to your mistress.  May she take the baby, Hester?’ The baby was taken, and then the two were alone.  ‘Do not pack up your things to-day, Hester.’

‘Why not?’

‘You are not going to-day.’

‘I am going to-day, mamma.’

’That I should seem to be cruel to you,—­only seem,—­cuts me to the heart.  But you cannot go back to Folking to-day.’

‘When am I to go?’

‘Ah, Hester!’

‘Tell me what you mean, mamma.  Is it that I am to be a prisoner?’

‘If you would be gentle I would explain it.’

’I will not be gentle.  You mean to keep me,—­by violence; but I mean to go; my husband will come.  I will not be kept.  Oh, mamma, you would not desire me to quarrel with you openly, before the servants, before all the world!  I will not be kept.  I will certainly go back to Folking.  Would I not go back though I had to get through the windows, to walk the whole way, to call upon the policemen even to help me?’

’No one will help you, Hester.  Every one will know that for the present this should be your home.’

‘It never shall be my home again,’ said Hester, bursting into tears, and rushing after her baby.

Then there were two hours of intense misery in that house,—­of misery to all who were concerned.  The servants, down to the girl in the scullery and the boy who cleaned the boots, were made aware that master and mistress were both determined to keep their married daughter a prisoner in the house.  The servants of the house sided with their mistress generally, having all of them been induced to regard John Caldigate with horror.  Hester’s nurse, of course, sympathised with her and her baby.  During these two hours the packing was completed, but Hester found that her strong walking-boots and her bonnet had been abstracted.  Did they really think that at such a time as this boots and bonnets would be anything