did not see why his sister should not have her husband and be restored to the world,—­if Judge Bramber should at last decide that so it ought to be.  No money could bribe Judge Bramber.  No undue persuasion could weaken him.  If that Rhadamanthus should at last say that the verdict had been a wrong verdict, then,—­for pity’s sake, for love’s sake, in the name of humanity, and for the sake of all Boltons present and to come,—­let the man be considered innocent.

But Robert Bolton was more intent on his purpose, and was a man of stronger passion.  Perhaps some real religious scruple told him that a woman should not live with a man who was not her true husband,—­let any judge say what he might.  But hatred, probably, had more to do with it than religion.  It was he who had first favoured Caldigate’s claim on Hester’s hand, and he who had been most grievously deceived.  From the moment in which the conviction had come upon him that Caldigate had even promised his hand in marriage to Euphemia Smith, he had become Caldigate’s enemy,—­his bitter enemy; and now he could not endure the thought that he should be called upon again to receive Caldigate as his brother-in-law.  Caldigate’s guilt was an idea fixed in his mind which no Secretary of State, no Judge Bramber, no brother could expel.

And so it came to pass that there were hard words between him and his brother.  ‘You are wrong,’ said William.

‘How wrong?  You cannot say that you believe him to be innocent.’

‘If he receives the Queen’s pardon he is to be considered as innocent.’

‘Even though you should know him to have been guilty?’

‘Well,—­yes,’ said William, slowly, and perhaps indiscreetly.  ’It is a matter in which a man’s guilt or innocence must be held to depend upon what persons in due authority have declared.  As he is now guilty of bigamy in consequence of the verdict, even though he should never have committed the offence, so should he be presumed to be innocent, when that verdict has been set aside by the Queen’s pardon on the advice of her proper officers,—­even though he committed the offence.’

’You would have your sister live with a man who has another wife alive?  It comes to that.’

‘For all legal purposes he would have no other wife alive.’

‘The children would be illegitimate.’

‘There you are decidedly wrong,’ said the barrister.  ’The children would be legitimate.  Even at this moment, without any pardon, the child could claim and would enter in upon his inheritance.’

‘The next of kin would claim,’ said the attorney.

‘The burden of proving the former marriage would then be on him,’ said the barrister.

‘The verdict would be evidence,’ said the attorney.

‘Certainly,’ said the barrister; ’but such evidence would not be worth a straw after a Queen’s pardon, given on the advice of the judge who had tried the former case.  As yet we know not what the judge may say,—­we do not know the facts as they have been expounded to him.  But if Caldigate be regarded as innocent by the world at large, it will be our duty so to regard him.’