you can defend such a condition
of things as you described to me the other day.'

'I do not mean to be put upon my defence,--at any rate by you,' said
Caldigate, very angrily. And then he left the office.

He had come into Cambridge with the intention of calling at Puritan
Grange after he had left the attorney, and when he found himself in the
street he walked on in the direction of Chesterton. He had wished to
thank his wife's mother for her concession and had been told by Hester
that if he would call, Mrs. Bolton would certainly see him now. Had
there been no letter from the woman in Australia, he would probably not
have obeyed his wife's behest in this matter. His heart and spirit would
then have been without a flaw, and, proud in his own strength and his
own rectitude, he would have declared to himself that the absurd
prejudices of a fanatic woman were beneath his notice. But that letter
had been a blow, and the blow, though it had not quelled him, had
weakened his forces. He could conceal the injury done him even from his
wife, but there was an injury. He was not quite the man that he had been
before. From day to day, and from hour to hour, he was always
remonstrating with himself because it was so. He was conscious that in
some degree he had been cowed, and was ever fighting against the
feeling. His tenderness to his wife was perhaps increased, because he
knew that she still suffered from the letter; but he was almost ashamed
of his own tenderness, as being a sign of weakness. He made himself very
busy in these days,--busy among his brother magistrates, busy among his
farming operations, busy with his tenants, busy among his books, so as
to show to those around him that he was one who could perform all the
duties of life, and enjoy all the pleasures, with an open brow and a
clear conscience. He had been ever bold and self-asserting; but now he
was perhaps a little over-bold. But through it all the Australian letter
and the Australian woman were present to him day and night.

It was this resolution not to be quelled that had made him call upon the
attorney at his office; and when he found himself back in the street he
was very angry with the man. 'If it pleases him, let it be so,' he said
to himself. 'I can do in the world without him.' And then he thought of
that threat,--when the attorney had said that he would remove his
sister. 'Remove her! By heavens!' He had a stick in his hand, and as he
went he struck it