He had wished to thank his wife's mother for her concession and had been told by Hester that if he would call, Mrs.Bolton would certainly see him now.

Had there been no letter from the woman in Australia, he would probably not have obeyed his wife's behest in this matter.

His heart and spirit would then have been without a flaw, and, proud in his own strength and his own rectitude, he would have declared to himself that the absurd prejudices of a fanatic woman were beneath his notice.

But that letter had been a blow, and the blow, though it had not quelled him, had weakened his forces.

He could conceal the injury done him even from his wife, but there was an injury.