It had been arranged that they should be driven out of Cambridge to the railway station at Audley End on their way to London; so that they might avoid the crowd of people who would know them at the Cambridge station. As soon as they had got away from the door of Robert Bolton's house, the husband attempted to comfort his young wife. 'At any rate it is over,' he said, alluding of course to the tedium of their wedding festivities.
'So much is over,' she replied.
'You do not regret anything?'
She shook her head slowly as she leaned lovingly against his shoulder. 'You are not sorry, Hester, that you have become my wife?'
'I had to be your wife,—because I love you.'
'Is that a sorrow?'
'I had been all my mother's;—and now I am all yours. She has thrown me off because I have disobeyed her. I hope you will never throw me off.'
'Is it likely?'
'I think not. I know that I shall never throw you off. They have tried to make me believe that you are not all that you ought to be—in religion. But now your religion shall be my religion, and your life my life. I shall be of your colour—altogether. But, John, a limb cannot be wrenched out of a socket, as I have been torn away from my mother, without pain.'
'She will forgive it all when we come back.'