’If everybody were to say what he thinks about everybody, nobody would ever go to see anybody.’  It was soon decided that Hester, with her baby, should go on an early day to Puritan Grange, and should stay there for a couple of nights.  But there was a difficulty as to Caldigate himself.  He was naturally enough anxious to send Hester without him, but she was as anxious to take him.  ‘It isn’t for my own sake,’ she said,—­’because I shall like to have you there with me.  Of course it will be very dull for you, but it will be so much better that we should all be reconciled, and that everyone should know that we are so.’

‘It would only be a pretence,’ said he.

‘People must pretend sometimes, John,’ she answered.  At last it was decided that he should take her, reaching the place about the hour of lunch, so that he might again break bread in her father’s house,—­that he should then leave her there, and that at the end of the two days she should return to Folking.

On the day named they reached Puritan Grange at the hour fixed.  Both Caldigate and Hester were very nervous as to their reception, and got out of the carriage almost without a word to each other.  The old gardener, who had been so busy during Hester’s imprisonment, was there to take the luggage; and Hester’s maid carried the child as Caldigate, with his wife behind him, walked up the steps and rang the bell.  There was no coming out to meet them, no greeting them even in the hall.  Mr. Bolton was perhaps too old and too infirm for such running out, and it was hardly within his nature to do so.  They were shown into the well-known morning sitting-room, and there they found Hester’s father in his chair, and Mrs. Bolton standing up to receive them.

Hester, after kissing her father, threw herself into her mother’s arms before a word had been said to Caldigate.  Then the banker addressed him with a set speech, which no doubt had been prepared in the old man’s mind.  ‘I am very glad,’ he said, ’that you have brought this unhappy matter to so good a conclusion, Mr. Caldigate.’

‘It has been a great trouble,—­worse almost for Hester than for me.’

’Yes, it has been sad enough for Hester,—­and the more so because it was natural that others should believe that which the jury and the judge declared to have been proved.  How should any one know otherwise?’

’Just so, Mr. Bolton.  If they will accept the truth now, I shall be satisfied.’

’It will come, but perhaps slowly to some folk.  You should in justice remember that your own early follies have tended to bring this all about.’

It was a grim welcome, and the last speech was one which Caldigate found it difficult to answer.  It was so absolutely true that it admitted of no answer.  He thought that it might have been spared, and shrugged his shoulders as though to say that that part of the subject was one which he did not care to discuss.  Hester heard it, and quivered with anger even in her mother’s arms.  Mrs. Bolton heard it, and in the midst of her kisses made an inward protest against the word used.  Follies indeed!  Why had he not spoken out the truth as he knew it, and told the man of his vices?