confidence of his father, by the friendliness of the parson, and by
the energetic assurances of partisans who were all on his side,--such
as Mr. Ralph Holt, the farmer. While Caldigate had been in Cambridge
waiting for his wife's escape, Holt and one or two others were maturing
a plan for breaking into Puritan Grange, and restoring the wife to
her husband. All this supported him. Without it he could hardly have
carried himself as he did. But with all this, still he was very
wretched. 'It is that so many people should think me guilty,' he said
to Mr. Bromley.

She bore it better--though, of course, now that she was safe at Folking,
she had but little to do as to outward bearing. In the first place, no
doubt as to his truth ever touched her for a moment,--and not much doubt
as to the result of the trial. It was to her an assured fact that John
Caldigate was her husband, and she could not realise the idea that, such
being the fact, a jury should say that he was not. But let all that be
as it might, they two were one; and to adhere to him in every word, in
every thought, in every little action, was to her the only line of
conduct possible. She heard what Mr. Bromley said, she knew what her
father-in-law thought, she was aware of the enthusiasm on her side of
the folk at Folking. It seemed to her that this opposition to her
happiness was but a continuation of that which her mother had always
made to her marriage. The Boltons were all against her. It was a
terrible sorrow to her. But she knew how to bear it bravely. In the
tenderness of her husband, who at this time was very tender to her, she
had her great consolation.

On the day of her return she had been very ill,--so ill that Caldigate
and his father had been much frightened. During the journey home in the
carriage, she had wept and laughed hysterically, now clutching her baby,
and then embracing her husband. Before reaching Folking she had been so
worn with fatigue that he had hardly been able to support her on the
seat. But after rest for a day or two, she had rallied completely. And
she herself had taken pleasure and great pride in the fact that through
it all her baby had never really been ill. 'He is a little man,' she
said, boasting to the boy's father, 'and knows how to put up with
troubles. And when his mamma was so bad he didn't peak and pine and cry,
so as to break her heart. Did he, my own, own brave little man?' And she
could boast of her own health too. 'T