The uncle, aunt, and cousins at Babington soon renewed their intimacy with John Caldigate, and became intimate with Hester.  The old squire still turned up his nose at them, as he had done all his life, calling them Boeotians, and reminding his son that Suffolk had always been a silly county.  But the Babingtons, one and all, knew this, and had no objection to be accounted thick-headed as long as they were acknowledged to be prosperous, happy, and comfortable.  It had always been considered at Babington that young Caldigate was brighter and more clever than themselves; and yet he had been popular with them as a cousin of whom they ought to be proud.  He was soon restored to his former favour, and after his return from the Continent spent a fortnight at the Hall, with his wife, very comfortably.  Julia, indeed, was not there, nor Mr. Smirkie.  Among all their neighbours and acquaintances Mr. Smirkie was the last to drop the idea that there must have been something in that story of an Australian marriage.  His theory of the law on the subject was still incorrect.  The Queen’s pardon, he said, could not do away with the verdict, and therefore he doubted whether the couple could be regarded as man and wife.  He was very anxious that they should be married again, and with great good-nature offered to perform the ceremony himself either at Plum-cum-Pippins or even in the drawing-room at Folking.

‘Suffolk to the very backbone!’ was the remark of the Cambridgeshire squire when he heard of this very kind offer.  But even he at last came round, under his wife’s persuasion, when he found that the paternal mansion was likely to be shut against him unless he yielded.

Hester’s second tour with her husband was postponed for some weeks, because it was necessary that her husband should appear as a witness against Crinkett and Euphemia Smith.  They were tried also at Cambridge, but not before Judge Bramber.  The woman never yielded an inch.  When she found how it was going with her, she made fast her money, and with infinite pluck resolved that she would endure with patience whatever might be in store for her, and wait for better times.  When put into the dock she pleaded not guilty with a voice that was audible only to the jailer standing beside her, and after that did not open her mouth during the trial.  Crinkett made a great effort to be admitted as an additional witness against his comrade, but, having failed in that, pleaded guilty at last.  He felt that there was no hope for him with such a weight of evidence against him, and calculated that his punishment might thus be lighter, and that he would save himself the cost of an expensive defence.  In the former hope he was deceived as the two were condemned to the same term of imprisonment.  When the woman heard that she was to be confined for three years with hard labour her spirit was almost broken.  But she made no outward sign; and as she was led away out of the dock she looked round for Caldigate, to wither him with the last glance of her reproach.  But Caldigate, who had not beheld her misery without some pang at his heart, had already left the court.