'How can two persons' words go for anything when obedience is concerned? It is like God and Mammon.'
'Hester!'
'If two people tell one differently, it must be right to cling to one and leave the other. No man can serve two masters. I have got to obey my husband. Even were I to say that I would stay, he could come and take me away.'
'He could not do that.'
'I shall not be so disobedient as to make it necessary The carriage will be here at twelve, and I shall go. I had better go and help nurse to put the things up.' So saying she left the room, but Mrs. Bolton remained there a while, sitting square and firm at the table.
It was not yet ten when she slowly followed her daughter up-stairs. She first went into her own room for a moment, to collect her thoughts over again, and then she walked across the passage to her daughter's chamber. She knocked at the door, but entered as she knocked. 'Nurse,' she said, 'will you go into my room for a minute or two? I wish to speak to your mistress. May she take the baby, Hester?' The baby was taken, and then the two were alone. 'Do not pack up your things to-day, Hester.'
'Why not?'
'You are not going to-day.'
'I am going to-day, mamma.'
'That I should seem to be cruel to you,—only seem,—cuts me to the heart. But you cannot go back to Folking to-day.'