vour
that we have made. When in the performance of a manifest duty we
endeavoured to separate you till after the trial, you succeeded in
thwarting us by your influence.'

'I left it to her.'

'Had you been true and honest and upright, you would have known that as
long as there was a doubt she ought to have been away from you.'

'I should have sent her away?'

'Certainly.'

'So as to create a doubt in her mind, so as to disturb her peace, so as
to make her think that I, having been found out, was willing to be rid
of her? It would have killed her.'

'Better so than this.'

'And yet I am as truly her husband as you are the husband of your wife.
If you would only teach yourself to think that possible, then you would
feel differently.'

'Not as to a temporary separation.'

'If you believed me, you would,' said Caldigate.

'But I do not believe you. In a matter like this, as you will come to
me, I must be plain. I do not believe you. I think that you have
betrayed and seduced my sister. Looking at all the evidence and at your
own confession, I can come to no other conclusion. I have discussed the
matter with my brother, who is a clear, cool-headed, most judicious man,
and he is of the same opinion. In our own private court we have brought
you in guilty,--guilty of an offence against us all which necessarily
makes us as bitter against you as one man can be against another. You
have destroyed our sister, and now you come here and ask me my advice
as to buying off witnesses.'

'It is all untrue. As there is a God above me I am her loyal, loving
husband. I will buy off no witness.'

'If I were you I would make no such attempt. It will do no good. I do
not think that you have a chance of being acquitted,--not a chance; and
then how much worse it will be for Hester when she finds herself still
in your house!'

'She will remain there.'

'Even she will feel that to be impossible. Your influence will then
probably be removed, and I presume that for a time you will have no
home. But we need not discuss that. As you are here, I should not do my
duty were I not to assure you that as far as we are concerned,--Hester's
family,--nothing shall be spared either in trouble or money to insure
the conviction and punishment of the man whom we believe to have brought
upon us so terrible a disgrace.'

Caldigate, when he got out into the street, felt that he was driven
almost to despair. At first he declared to himself, most un