John Caldigate eBook

But at last it was all told.  Caldigate had been declared guilty, and the judge had condemned him to be confined to prison for two years.  Judge Bramber had told him that, in his opinion, the jury could have found no other verdict; but he went on to say that, looking for some excuse for so terrible a deed as that which had been done,—­so terrible for that poor lady who was now left nameless with a nameless infant,—­he could imagine that the marriage, though legally solemnised, had nevertheless been so deficient in the appearances of solemnity as to have imbued the husband with the idea that it had not meant all that a marriage would have meant if celebrated in a church and with more of the outward appurtenances of religion.  On that account he refrained from inflicting a severer penalty.

Chapter XLIV

After the Verdict

When the verdict was given, Caldigate was at once marched round into the dock, having hitherto been allowed to sit in front of the dock between Mr. Seely and his father.  But, standing in the dock, he heard the sentence pronounced upon him.  ‘I never married the woman, my lord,’ he said, in a loud voice.  But what he said could be of no avail.  And then men looked at him as he disappeared with the jailers down the steps leading to regions below, and away to his prison, and they knew that he would no more be seen or heard of for two years.  He had vanished.  But there was the lady who was not his wife out at Folking,—­the lady whom the jury had declared not to be his wife.  What would become of her?

There was an old gentleman there in the court who had known Mr. Caldigate for many years,—­one Mr. Ryder, who had been himself a practising barrister but had now retired.  In those days they seldom saw each other; but, nevertheless, they were friends.  ‘Caldigate,’ he said, ‘you had better let her go back to her own people.’

‘She shall stay with me,’ he replied.

’Better not.  Believe me, she had better not.  If so, how will it be with her when he is released?  The two years will soon go by, and then she will be in his house.  If that woman should die, he might marry her,—­but till then she had better be with her own people.’

‘She shall stay with me,’ the old man said again, repeating the words angrily, and shaking his head.  He was so stunned by the blow that he could not argue the matter, but he knew that he had made the promise, and that he was resolved to abide by it.

She had better go back to her own people!  All the world was saying it.  She had no husband now.  Everybody would respect her misfortune.  Everybody would acknowledge her innocence.  All would sympathise with her.  All would love her.  But she must go back to her own people.  There was not a dissentient voice.  ‘Of course she must go back to you now,’ Nicholas Bolton said to her father, and Nicholas Bolton seldom interfered in anything.