ok in
her most determined moments.

'My child!'

'What is the use of all this, mamma? Nothing shall make me leave him.
Others may be ashamed of me; but because of this I shall never be
ashamed of myself. You are ashamed of me!'

'If you could mean what you said just now I should be ashamed of you.'

'I do mean it. Though the juries and the judges should say that he was
not my husband, though all the judges in England should say it, I would
not believe them. They may put him in prison and so divide us; but they
never shall divide my bone from his bone, and my flesh from his flesh.
As you are ashamed of me, I had better go back to-morrow.'

Then Mrs. Bolton determined that early in the morning she would look to
the bolts and bars; but when the morning came matters had softened
themselves a little.

Chapter XXXII

The Babington Wedding

It is your duty,--especially your duty,--to separate them.' This was
said by Mr. Smirkie, the vicar of Plum-cum-Pippin, to Mr. Bromley, the
rector of Utterden, and the words were spoken in the park at Babington
where the two clergymen were taking a walk together. Mr. Smirkie's
first wife had been a Miss Bromley, a sister of the clergyman at
Utterden; and as Julia Babington was anxious to take to her bosom all
her future husband's past belongings, Mr. Bromley had been invited to
Babington. It might be that Aunt Polly was at this time well inclined
to exercise her hospitality in this direction by a feeling that Mr.
Bromley would be able to talk to them about this terrible affair. Mr.
Bromley was intimate with John Caldigate, and of course would know all
about it. There was naturally in Aunt Polly's heart a certain amount of
self-congratulation at the way in which things were going. Mr. Smirkie,
no doubt, had had a former wife, but no one would call him a bigamist.
In what a condition might her poor Julia have been but for that
interposition of Providence! For Aunt Polly regarded poor Hester Bolton
as having been quite a providential incident, furnished expressly for
the salvation of Julia. Hitherto Mr. Bromley had been very short in
his expressions respecting the Folking tragedy, having simply declared
that, judging by character, he could not conceive that a man such as
Caldigate would have been guilty of such a crime. But now he was being
put through his facings more closely by his brother-in-law.

'Why should I want to separate them?'

'Because the evidence of his gui