It was true,—­and the daughter knew it to be true.  But what could be done?  There had grown up something for her, holier, greater, more absorbing even than a mother’s love.  Happily for most young wives, though the new tie may surmount the old one, it does not crush it or smother it.  The mother retains a diminished hold, and knowing what nature has intended is content.  She, too, with some subsidiary worship, kneels at the new altar, and all is well.  But here, though there was abundant love, there was no sympathy.  The cause of discord was ever present to them both.  Unless John Caldigate was acknowledged to be a fitting husband, not even the mother could be received with a full welcome.  And unless John Caldigate were repudiated, not even the daughter could be accepted as altogether pure.  Parental and filial feelings sufficed for nothing between them beyond the ecstasy of a caress.

As Hester was standing mute, still holding her mother’s hand, the servant came to the door, and asked whether she would have her lunch.

’You will stay and eat with me, mamma?  But you will come up to my room first?’

‘I will go up to your room, Hester.’

‘Then we will have our lunch,’ Hester said, turning to the servant.  So the two went together to the upper chamber, and in a moment the mother had fetched her baby, and placed it in her mother’s arms.

‘I wish he were at the Grange,’ said Mrs. Bolton.  Then Hester shook her head; but feeling the security of her position, left the baby with its grandmother.  ’I wish he were at the Grange.  It is the only fitting home for him at present.’

‘No, mamma; that cannot be.’

‘It should be so, Hester.  It should be so.’

‘Pray do not speak of it, dear mamma.’

’Have I not come here on purpose that I might speak of it?  Sweet as it is to me to have you in my arms, do you not know that I have come for that purpose,—­for that only?’

‘It cannot be so.’

’I will not take such an answer, Hester.  I am not here to speak of pleasure or delights,—­not to speak of sweet companionship, or even of a return to that more godly life which, I think, you would find in your father’s house.  Had not this ruin come, unhappy though I might have been, and distrustful, I should not have interfered.  Those whom God has joined together, let not man put asunder.’

’It is what I say to myself every hour.  God has joined us, and no man, no number of men, shall put us asunder.’

’But, my own darling,—­God has not joined you!  When he pretended to be joined to you, he had a wife then living,—­still living.’

‘No.’

’Will you set up your own opinion against evidence which the jury has believed, which the judge has believed, which all the world has believed?’

‘Yes, I will,’ said Hester, the whole nature of whose face was now altered, and who looked as she did when sitting in the hall-chair at Puritan Grange,—­’I will.  Though I were almost to know that he had been false, I should still believe him to be true.’