‘She shall come here,’ muttered the old man.

‘Certainly, she shall,’ said Mrs. Bolton, ’if she will.  Do you suppose that I do not long to have my own child in my arms?’

‘She shall come here, and be called by her name,’ said the father.

‘She shall be Hester,—­my own Hester,’ said the mother, not feeling herself as yet called upon to contradict her husband.

‘And John Caldigate shall come,’ he said.

‘Never!’ exclaimed Mrs. Bolton.

’He shall be asked to come.  I say he shall.  Am I to be harder on my own child than are all the others?  Shall I call her a castaway, when others say that she is an honest married woman?’

‘Who has called her a castaway?’

‘I took the verdict of the jury, though it broke my heart,’ he continued.  ’It broke my heart to be told that my girl and her child were nameless,—­but I believed it because the jury said so, and because the judge declared it.  When they tell me the contrary, why shall I not believe that?  I do believe it; and she shall come here, if she will, and he shall come.’  Then he got up and slowly moved out of the room, so that there might be no further argument on the subject.

She had reseated herself with her arms crossed, and there sat perfectly mute.  Robert Bolton stood up and repeated all his arguments, appealing even to her maternal love,—­but she answered him never a word.  She had not even yet succeeded in making the companion of her life submissive to her!  That was the feeling which was now uppermost in her mind.  He had said that Caldigate should be asked to the house, and should be acknowledged throughout all Cambridge as his son-in-law.  And having said it, he would be as good as his word.  She was sure of that.  Of what avail had been all the labour of her life with such a result?

‘I hope you will think that I have done no more than my duty,’ said Robert Bolton, offering her his hand.  But there she sat perfectly silent, with her arms still folded, and would take no notice of him.  ‘Good-bye,’ said he, striving to put something of the softness of affection into his voice.  But she would not even bend her head to him;—­and thus he left her.

She remained motionless for the best part of an hour.  Then she got up, and according to her daily custom walked a certain number of times round the garden.  Her mind was so full that she did not as usual observe every twig, almost every leaf, as she passed.  Nor, now that she was alone, was that religious bias, which had so much to do with her daily life, very strong within her.  There was no taint of hypocrisy in her character; but yet, with the force of human disappointment heavy upon her, her heart was now hot with human anger, and mutinous with human resolves.  She had proposed to herself to revenge herself upon the men of her husband’s family,—­upon the men who had contrived that marriage for her daughter,—­by devoting herself to the care of that daughter and her