The moment that Caldigate appeared coming round the curve of the gravel road Hester saw him.  Jumping up from her chair with her baby, she rushed to the window, and called to him aloud, tapping at the window as she did so, ’John, I am here!  Come to me! come to me!  Take me out!  They have shut me in, and will not let me come to you.’  Then she held up the baby.  ’Mamma, let him in, so that he come to his own baby.  You dare not keep the father away from his own child.’  At this time the nurse was in the hall, as was also the cook.  But the front door was locked as well as chained, and the key was in Mrs. Bolton’s own pocket.  She sat perfectly silent, rigid, without a motion.  She had known that he would come and show himself; and she had determined that she would be rigid, silent, and motionless.  She would not move or speak unless Hester should endeavour to make her way down into the kitchen.  But just in the passage which led to the top of the kitchen stairs stood the cook,—­strong, solid, almost twice the weight of Hester,—­a pious, determined woman, on whom her mistress could depend that she would remain there impervious.

They could talk to each other now, Hester and Caldigate, each explaining or suggesting what had been done or should be done; but they could converse only so that their enemies around them should hear every word that was spoken.  ‘No, John, no; I will not stay,’ she said, when her husband told her that he would leave the decision to her.  ’Unless it be to do your bidding, I will not stay here willingly.  And, John, I will not move upstairs.  I will remain here; and if they choose to give me food they may bring it to me.  Unless they carry me I will not go to my bedroom.  And they shall tear me to pieces before I will let them carry me.  Poor baby! poor baby!  I know he will be ill,’ she said, moaning, but still so that he, standing beyond the railings, should hear her through the window.  ’I know he will be ill; but what can I do?  They do not care for my baby.  If he should die it will be nothing to them.’  During all this Mrs. Bolton kept her resolve, and sat there rigid, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, speaking no word, apparently paying no attention to the scene around her.  Her back was turned to the front door, so that she could not see John Caldigate.  Nor would she attempt to look at him.  He could not get in, nor could the other get out.  If that were so she would endeavour to bear it all.  In the meantime the old man was sitting in his arm-chair up in his bedroom, reduced almost to inanity of mind by the horror of the occasion.  When he could think of it all he would tell himself that he must let her go.  He could not keep the mother and her baby a prisoner in such a condition as this.

Then there came dinner.  Let misfortunes be what they may, dinner will come.  The old man crawled down-stairs, and Hester was invited into the dining-room.  ‘No,’ she said.  ’If you choose to send it to me here, because of baby, I will eat.’  Then, neither would Mrs. Bolton go to her husband; but both of them, seated in their high-backed arm-chairs, ate their food with their plates upon their laps.