together, they sat speechless and alone, while the news was spread
through the household which the old man did not dare to tell to his
son's wife.

It was very slowly that the actual tidings reached her ears. Mr.
Caldigate, when he tried to tell them, found that the power of words had
left him. Old as he was, and prone to cynic indifference as he had shown
himself, he was affected almost like a young girl. He sobbed
convulsively as he hung over her, embracing her. 'My daughter!' he said,
'my daughter! my daughter!'

But at last it was all told. Caldigate had been declared guilty, and the
judge had condemned him to be confined to prison for two years. Judge
Bramber had told him that, in his opinion, the jury could have found no
other verdict; but he went on to say that, looking for some excuse for
so terrible a deed as that which had been done,--so terrible for that
poor lady who was now left nameless with a nameless infant,--he could
imagine that the marriage, though legally solemnised, had nevertheless
been so deficient in the appearances of solemnity as to have imbued the
husband with the idea that it had not meant all that a marriage would
have meant if celebrated in a church and with more of the outward
appurtenances of religion. On that account he refrained from inflicting
a severer penalty.

Chapter XLIV

After the Verdict

When the verdict was given, Caldigate was at once marched round into the
dock, having hitherto been allowed to sit in front of the dock between
Mr. Seely and his father. But, standing in the dock, he heard the
sentence pronounced upon him. 'I never married the woman, my lord,' he
said, in a loud voice. But what he said could be of no avail. And then
men looked at him as he disappeared with the jailers down the steps
leading to regions below, and away to his prison, and they knew that he
would no more be seen or heard of for two years. He had vanished. But
there was the lady who was not his wife out at Folking,--the lady whom
the jury had declared not to be his wife. What would become of her?

There was an old gentleman there in the court who had known Mr.
Caldigate for many years,--one Mr. Ryder, who had been himself a
practising barrister but had now retired. In those days they seldom saw
each other; but, nevertheless, they were friends. 'Caldigate,' he said,
'you had better let her go back to her own people.'

'She shall stay with me,' he replied.

'Better not. Believe m