’The poor lady will of course be restored to her family,’ the judge had said in private to his marshal, and the marshal had of course made known what the judge had said.  On the next morning there came a letter from William Bolton to Robert.  ’Of course Hester must come back now.  Nothing else is possible.’  Everybody decided that she must come back.  It was a matter which admitted of no doubt.  But how was she to be brought to Chesterton?

None of them who decided with so much confidence as to her future, understood her ideas of her position as a wife.  ’I am bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,’ she said to herself, ’made so by a sacrament which no jury can touch.  What matters what the people say?  They may make me more unhappy than I am.  They may kill me by their cruelty.  But they cannot make me believe myself not to be his wife.  And while I am his wife, I will obey him, and him only.’

What she called ‘their cruelty’ manifested itself very soon.  The first person who came to her was Mrs. Robert Bolton, and her visit was made on the day after the verdict.  When Hester sent down word begging to be permitted in her misery to decline to see even her sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert sent her up a word or two written in pencil—­’My darling, whom have you nearer?  Who loves you better than I?’ Then the wretched one gave way, and allowed her brother’s wife to be brought to her.  She was already dressed from head to foot in black, and her baby was with her.

The arguments which Mrs. Robert Bolton used need not be repeated, but it may be said that the words she used were so tender, and that they were urged with so much love, so much sympathy, and so much personal approval, that Hester’s heart was touched.  ‘But he is my husband,’ Hester said.  ‘The judge cannot alter it; he is my husband.’

’I will not say a word to the contrary.  But the law has separated you, and you should obey the law.  You should not even eat his bread now, because—­because—.  Oh, Hester, you understand.’

‘I do understand,’ she said, rising to her feet in her energy, ’and I will eat his bread though it be hard, and I will drink of his cup though it be bitter.  His bread and his cup shall be mine, and none other shall be mine.  I do understand.  I know that these wicked people have blasted my life.  I know that I can be nothing to him now.  But his child shall never be made to think that his mother had condemned his father.  Yes, Margaret,’ she said again, ’I do love you, and I do trust you, and I know that you love me.  But you do not love him; you do not believe in him.  If they came to you and took Robert away, would you go and live with other people?  I do love papa and mamma.  But this is his house, and he bids me stay here.  The very clothes which I wear are his clothes.  I am his; and though they were to cut me apart from him, still I should belong to him.  No,—­I will not go to mamma.  Of course I have forgiven her, because she meant it for the best; but I will never go back to Chesterton.’