take her
back on the Wednesday, but that he would bring a servant with him who
should drive the carriage up to the Grange, so that he, personally,
should not have to appear at the door of the house. He would remain at
Mr. Seely's, and then the waggonette should pick him up. This had been
explained to Mrs. Bolton. 'John will remain in town, because he has so
much to do with Mr. Seely,' Hester had said; 'and Richard will call here
at about twelve.' All her plans had thus been made known, and Mrs.
Bolton was aware at what hour the bolts must be drawn and the things
removed.

But, as the time drew nearer, her dislike to a sudden commencement of
absolute hostilities became stronger,--to hostilities which would seem
to have no sanction from Mr. Bolton himself, because he would then be
absent. And he too, though as he lay awake through the dreary hours of
the long night he said no word about the plan, felt, and felt more
strongly as the dawn was breaking, that it would be mean to leave his
daughter with a farewell kiss, knowing as he would do that he was
leaving her within prison-bars, leaving her to the charge of jailers.
The farewell kiss would be given as though he and she were to meet no
more in her old home till this terrible trial should be over, and some
word appropriate to such a parting would then be spoken. But any such
parting word would be false, and the falsehood would be against his own
child! 'Does she expect it?' he said, in a low voice, when his wife came
up to him as he was dressing.

'She expects nothing. I am thinking that perhaps you would tell her
that she could not go to-day.'

'I could not say "to-day." If I tell her anything, I must tell her all.'

'Will not that be best?' Then the old man thought it all over. It would
be very much the best for him not to say anything about it if he could
reconcile it to his conscience to leave the house without doing so. And
he knew well that his wife was more powerful than he,--gifted with
greater persistence, more capable of enduring a shower of tears or a
storm of anger. The success of the plan would be more probable if the
conduct of it were left entirely to his wife, but his conscience was
sore within him.

'You will come with me to the gate,' he said to his daughter, after
their silent breakfast.

'Oh yes;--to say good-bye.'

Then he took his hat, and his gloves, and his umbrella, very slowly,
lingering in the hall as he did so, while his wife kept her