'The children would be illegitimate.'
'There you are decidedly wrong,' said the barrister. 'The children would be legitimate. Even at this moment, without any pardon, the child could claim and would enter in upon his inheritance.'
'The next of kin would claim,' said the attorney.
'The burden of proving the former marriage would then be on him,' said the barrister.
'The verdict would be evidence,' said the attorney.
'Certainly,' said the barrister; 'but such evidence would not be worth a straw after a Queen's pardon, given on the advice of the judge who had tried the former case. As yet we know not what the judge may say,—we do not know the facts as they have been expounded to him. But if Caldigate be regarded as innocent by the world at large, it will be our duty so to regard him.'
'I will never look on him as Hester's husband,' said the attorney.
'I and Fanny have already made up our minds that we would at once ask them to come to us for a month,' said the barrister.
'Nothing on earth will induce me to speak to him,' said the attorney.
'Then you will be very cruel to Hester,' said the barrister.