Before the wedding old Mr. Caldigate arranged with his son that he would give up to the young married people the house at Folking, and indeed the entire management of the property. ‘I have made up my mind about it,’ said the squire, who at this time was living with his son on happy terms. ‘I have never been adapted for the life of a country gentleman,’ he continued, ‘though I have endeavoured to make the best of it, and have in a certain way come to love the old place. But I don’t care about wheat nor yet about bullocks;— and a country house should always have a mistress.’ And so it was settled. Mr. Caldigate took for himself a house in Cambridge, whither he proposed to remove nothing but himself and his books, and promised to have Folking ready for his son and his son’s bride on their return from their wedding tour. In all this Robert Bolton and the old squire acted together, the brother thinking that the position would suit his sister well. But others among the Boltons,— Mrs Daniel, the London people, and even Mrs. Robert herself,— had thought that the ‘young people’ had better be further away from the influences or annoyances of Puritan Grange. Robert, however, had declared that it would be absurd to yield to the temper, and prejudice, and fury — as he called it — of his father’s wife. When this discussion was going on she had absolutely quarrelled with the attorney, and the attorney had made up his mind that she should be — ignored. And then, too, as Robert explained, it must be for the husband and not for the wife to choose where they would live. Folking was, or at any rate would be, his own, by right of inheritance, and it was not to be thought of that a man should be driven away from his natural duties and from the enjoyment of his natural privileges by the mad humours of a fanatic female. In all this old Mr. Bolton was hardly consulted; but there was no reason why he should express an opinion. He was giving his daughter absolutely no fortune; nor had he even vouchsafed to declare what money should be coming to her at his death. John Caldigate had positively refused to say a word on the subject;— had refused even when instigated to do so by Hester’s brother. ‘It shall be just as he pleases,’ Caldigate had said. ‘I told your father that I was not looking after his daughter with any view to money, and I will be as good as my word.’ Robert had told her father that something should be arranged;— but the old man had put it off from day to day, and nothing had been arranged. And so it came to pass that he was excluded almost from having an opinion as to his daughter’s future life.

It was understood that the marriage trip should be continued for some months. Caldigate was fettered by no business that required an early return. He had worked hard for five years, and felt that he had earned a holiday. And Hester naturally was well disposed to be absent for as long a time as would suit her husband. Time, and time alone, might perhaps soften her mother’s heart. They went to Italy, and stayed during the winter months in Rome, and then, when the fine weather came, they returned across the Alps, and lingered about among the playgrounds of Europe, visiting Switzerland the Tyrol, and the Pyrenees, and returning home to Cambridgeshire at the close of the following September.

And then there was a reason for the return. It would be well that the coming heir to the Folking estate should be born at Folking. Whether an heir, or only an insignificant girl, it would be well that the child should be born amidst the comforts of home; and so they came back. When they reached the station at Cambridge the squire was there to receive them, as were also Robert Bolton and his wife. ‘I am already in my new house,’ said the old man,—‘but I mean to go out with you for to-day and to-morrow, and just stay till you are comfortably fixed.’

‘I never see her myself,’ said Robert, in answer to a whispered inquiry from his sister. ‘Or it would be more correct to say she will never see me. But I hear from the others that she speaks of you constantly.’

‘She has written to me of course. But she never mentions John. In writing back I have always sent his love, and have endeavoured to show that I would not recognise any quarrel.’

‘If I were you,’ said Robert, ‘I would not take him with me when I went.’ Then the three Caldigates were taken off to Folking.

A week passed by and then arrived the day on which it had been arranged that Hester was to go to Chesterton and see her mother. There had been numerous letters, and at last the matter was settled between Caldigate and old Mr. Bolton at the bank. ‘I think you had better let her come alone,’ the old man had said when Caldigate asked whether he might be allowed to accompany his wife. ‘Mrs. Bolton has not been well since her daughter’s marriage and has felt the desolation of her position very much. She is weak and nervous, and I think you had better let Hester come alone.’ Had Caldigate known his mother-in-law better he would not have suggested a visit from himself. No one who did know her would have looked forward to see her old hatred eradicated by an absence of nine months. Hester therefore went into Cambridge alone, and was taken up to the house by her father. As she entered the iron gates she felt almost as though she were going into the presence of one who was an enemy to herself. And yet when she saw her mother, she rushed at once into the poor woman’s arms. ‘Oh, mamma, dear mamma, dearest mamma! My own, own, own mamma!’

Mrs. Bolton was sitting by the open window of a small breakfast parlour which looked into the garden, and had before her on her little table her knitting and a volume of sermons. ‘So you have come back, Hester,’ she said after a short pause. She had risen at first to receive her daughter, and had returned her child’s caresses, but had then reseated herself quickly, as though anxious not to evince any strong feeling on the occasion.

‘Yes, mamma, I have come back. We have been so happy!’

‘I am glad you have been happy. Such joys are short-lived; but, still —’

‘He has been so good to me, mamma!’

Good! What was the meaning of the word good? She doubted the goodness of such goodness as his. Do not they who are tempted by the pleasures of the world always praise the good-nature and kindness of them by whom they are tempted? There are meanings to the word good which are so opposed one to another! ‘A husband is, I suppose, generally kind to his wife, at any rate for a little time,’ she said.

‘Oh, mamma, I do so wish you knew him!’ The woman turned her face round, away from her daughter, and assumed that look of hard, determined impregnable obstinacy with which Hester had been well acquainted all her life. But the young wife had come there with a purpose, not strong perhaps, in actual hope, but resolute even against hope to do her best. There must be an enduring misery to her unless she could bring her mother into some friendly relation with her husband, and she had calculated that the softness produced by her return would give a better chance for this than she might find at any more protracted time. But Mrs. Bolton had also made her calculations and had come to her determination. She turned her head away therefore, and sat quite silent, with the old stubborn look of resolved purpose.

‘Mamma, you will let him come to you now?’

‘No.’

‘Not your own Hester’s husband?’

‘No.’

‘Are we to be divided for ever?’

‘Did I not tell you before,— when you were going? Shall I lie, and say that I love him? I will not touch pitch, lest I be defiled.’

‘Mamma, he is my husband. You shall not call him pitch. He is my very own. Mamma, mamma!— recall the word that you have said.’

The woman felt that it had to be recalled in some degree. ‘I said nothing of him, Hester. I call that pitch which I believe to be wrong, and if I swerve but a hair’s-breadth wittingly towards what I believe to be evil, then I shall be touching pitch and then I shall be defiled. I did not say that he was pitch. Judge not and ye shall not be judged............