s my husband. Tell papa to say so also.--Your most
affectionate daughter,

'HESTER CALDIGATE.'

Mrs. Bolton found this letter on the breakfast-table lying, as was usual
with her letters, close to her plate, and she read it without saying a
word to her husband. Then she put it in her pocket, and still did not
say a word. Before the middle of the day she had almost made up her
mind that she would keep the letter entirely to herself. It was well,
she thought, that he had not seen it, and no good could be done by
showing it to him. But he had been in the breakfast-parlour before her,
had seen the envelope, and had recognised the handwriting. They were
sitting together after lunch, and she was just about to open the book of
sermons with which, at that time, she was regaling him, when he stopped
her with a question. 'What did Hester say in her letter?'

Even those who intend to be truthful are sometimes surprised into a lie.
'What letter?' she said. But she remembered herself at once, and knew
that she could not afford to be detected in a falsehood. 'That note from
Hester? Yes;--I had a note this morning.'

'I know you had a note. What does she say?'

'She tells me that he--he has come back.'

'And what else? She was well aware that we knew that without her telling
us.'

'She wants to come here.'

'Bid her come.'

'Of course she shall come.'

'And him.' To this she made no answer, except with the muscles of her
face, which involuntarily showed her antagonism to the order she had
received. 'Bid her bring her husband with her,' said the banker.

'He would not come,--though I were to ask him.'

'Then let it be on his own head.'

'I will not ask him,' she said at last, looking away across the room at
the blank wall. 'I will not belie my own heart. I do not want to see him
here. He has so far got the better of me; but I will not put my neck
beneath his feet for him to tread on me.'

Then there was a pause;--not that he intended to allow her disobedience
to pass, but that he was driven to bethink himself how he might best
oppose her. 'Woman,' he said, 'you can neither forgive nor forget.'

'He has got my child from me,--my only child.'

'Does he persecute your child? Is she not happy in his love? Even if he
have trespassed against you, who are you that you should not forgive a
trespass? I say that he shall be asked to come here, that men may know
that in her own father's house she is regarded as his tr