the old man from his son in
town was very short, merely stating that the authorities at the Home
Office had at last decided that Caldigate should be released from
prison. The writer knew that his father would be prepared for this news
by his brother; and all that could be said in the way of argument had
been said already. The letters which came to Puritan Grange were few in
number, and were generally addressed to the lady. The banker's letters
were all received at the house of business in the town. 'What is it?'
asked the wife, as soon as she saw the long official envelope. But he
read it to the end very slowly before he vouchsafed her any reply. 'It
has to do with that wretched man in prison,' she said. 'What is it?'

'He is in prison no longer.'

'They have let him escape?'

'The Queen has pardoned him because he was not guilty.'

'The Queen! As though she could know whether he be guilty or innocent.
What can the Queen know of the manner of his life in foreign
parts,--before he had taken my girl away from me?'

'He never married the woman. Let there be no more said about it. He
never married her.'

But Mrs. Bolton, though she was not victorious, was not to be silenced
by a single word. No more about it, indeed! There must be very much more
about it. 'If she was not his wife, she was worse,' she said.

'He has repented of that.'

'Repented!' she said, with scorn. What very righteous person ever
believed in the repentance of an enemy?

'Why should he not repent?'

'He has had leisure in jail.'

'Let us hope that he has used it. At any rate he is her husband. There
are not many days left to me here. Let me at least see my daughter
during the few that remain to me.'

'Do I not want to see my own child?'

'I will see her and her boy;--and I will have them called by the name
which is theirs. And he shall come,--if he will. Who are you, or who am
I, that we shall throw in his teeth the sins of his youth?' Then she
became sullen and there was not a word more said between them that
morning. But after breakfast the old gardener was sent into town for a
fly, and Mr. Bolton was taken to the bank.

'And what are we to do now?' asked Mrs. Robert Bolton of her husband,
when the tidings were made known to her also at her breakfast-table.

'We must take it as a fact that she is his wife.'

'Of course, my dear. If the Secretary of State were to say that I was
his wife, I suppose I should have to take it as a fact.'