What must he do first?  Robert Bolton had promised to tell him on the morrow whether he would act for him as his lawyer.  He felt sure now that his brother-in-law would not do so; but it would be necessary that he should have an answer, and that necessity would give him an excuse for going into Cambridge and showing himself among the Boltons.  Let his sufferings or his fears be what they might, he would never confess to the world that he suffered or that he was frightened, by shutting himself up.  He would be seen about Cambridge, walking openly, as though no reports, no rumours, had been spread about concerning him.  He would go to the houses of his wife’s relations until he should be told that he was not welcome.

‘John,’ his wife said to him that night, ‘bear it like a man.’

‘Am I not bearing it like a man?’

‘It is crushing your very heart.  I see it in your eyes.’

‘Can you bear it?’ He asked his question with a stern voice; but as he asked it he turned to her and kissed her.

‘Yes,’ she said, ’yes.  While I have you with me, and baby, I can bear anything.  While you will tell me everything that happens, I will bear everything.  And, John, when you were out just now, and when I am alone and trying to pray, I told myself that I ought not to be unhappy; for I would sooner have you and baby and all these troubles, than be back at Chesterton—­without you.’

‘I wish you were back there.  I wish you had never seen me.’

‘If you say that, then I shall be crushed.’

’For your sake, my darling; for your sake,—­for your sake!  How shall I comfort you when all those around you are saying that you are not my wife?’

‘By telling me that I am,’ she said, coming and kneeling at his feet, and looking up into his face.  ’If you say so, you may be sure that I shall believe no one who says the contrary.’

It was thus, and only now, that he began to know the real nature of the woman whom he had succeeded in making his own, and of whom he found now that even her own friends would attempt to rob him.  ‘I will bear it,’ he said, as he embraced her.  ‘I will bear it, if I can, like a man.’

‘Oh, ma’am! those men were saying horrid things,’ her nurse said to her that night.

’Yes; very horrid things.  I know it all.  It is part of a wicked plot to rob Mr. Caldigate of his money.  It is astonishing the wickedness that people will contrive.  It is very very sad.  I don’t know how long it may be before Mr. Caldigate can prove it all.’

‘But he can prove it all, ma’am?’

’Of course he can.  The truth can always be proved at last.  I trust there will be no one about the place to doubt him.  If there were such a one, I would not speak to him,—­though it were my own father; though it were my own mother.’  Then she took the baby in her arms, as though fearing that the nurse herself might not be loyal.

’I don’t think there will be any as knows master, will be wrong enough for that,’ said the nurse, understanding what was expected of her.  After that, but not quite readily, the baby was once more trusted to her.