'He has had leisure in jail.'
'Let us hope that he has used it. At any rate he is her husband. There are not many days left to me here. Let me at least see my daughter during the few that remain to me.'
'Do I not want to see my own child?'
'I will see her and her boy;—and I will have them called by the name which is theirs. And he shall come,—if he will. Who are you, or who am I, that we shall throw in his teeth the sins of his youth?' Then she became sullen and there was not a word more said between them that morning. But after breakfast the old gardener was sent into town for a fly, and Mr. Bolton was taken to the bank.
'And what are we to do now?' asked Mrs. Robert Bolton of her husband, when the tidings were made known to her also at her breakfast-table.
'We must take it as a fact that she is his wife.'
'Of course, my dear. If the Secretary of State were to say that I was his wife, I suppose I should have to take it as a fact.'
'If he said that you were a goose it might be nearer the mark.'
'Really! But a goose must know what she is to do.'
'You must write her a letter and call her Mrs. Caldigate. That will be an acknowledgment.'