‘I couldn’t suspect people like that.’

’And therefore, my dear, you are hardly fit to be Secretary of State.  We must not be too sanguine.  That is all.’

But Hester was very sanguine.  When it was fully known that Dick had written to Mr. Seely immediately on his arrival at Pollington, and that he had shown himself to be a warm partisan in the Caldigate interests, she could not rest till she saw him herself, and persuaded Mr. Caldigate to invite him down to Folking.  To Folking therefore he went, with the full intention of declaring John Caldigate’s innocence, not only there, but all through Cambridgeshire.  The Boltons, of whom he had now heard something, should be made to know what an honest man had to say on the subject,—­an honest man, and who was really on the spot at the time.  To Dick’s mind it was marvellous that the Boltons should have been anxious to secure a verdict against Caldigate,—­which verdict was also against their own daughter and their own sister.  Being quite sure himself that Caldigate was innocent, he could not understand the condition of feeling which would be produced by an equally strong conviction of his guilt.  Nor was his mind, probably, imbued with much of that religious scruple which made the idea of a feigned marriage so insupportable to all Hester’s relations.  Nor was he aware that when a man has taken a preconception home to himself and fastened it and fixed it, as it were, into his bosom, he cannot easily expel it,—­even though personal interest should be on the side of such expulsion.  It had become a settled belief with the Boltons that John Caldigate was a bigamist, which belief had certainly been strengthened by the pertinacious hostility of Hester’s mother.  Dick had heard something of all this, and thought that he would be able to open their eyes.

When he arrived at Folking he was received with open arms.  Sir John Joram had not quite liked him, because his manner had been rough.  Mr. Seely had regarded him from the first as a ruined man, and therefore a willing perjurer.  Even at Pollington his ‘bush’ manners had been a little distasteful to all except his mother.  Mr. Caldigate felt some difficulty in making conversation with him.  But to Hester he was as an angel from heaven.  She was never tired of hearing from him every detail as to her husband’s life at Ahalala and Nobble,—­particularly as to his life after Euphemia Smith had taken herself to those parts and had quarrelled with him.  The fact of the early infatuation had been acknowledged on all sides.  Hester was able to refer to that as a mother, boasting of her child’s health, may refer to the measles,—­which have been bad and are past and gone.  Euphemia Smith had been her husband’s measles.  Men generally have the measles.  That was a thing so completely acknowledged, that it was not now the source of discomfort.  And the disease had been very bad with him.  So bad that he had talked of marriage,—­had promised marriage.  Crafty women do get hold of innocent men, and drive them sometimes into perdition,—­often to the brink of perdition.  That was Hester’s theory as to her husband.  He had been on the brink, but had been wise in time.  That was her creed, and as it was supported by Dick, she found no fault with Dick’s manner,—­not even with the yellow trousers which were brought into use at Folking.