He could understand both the old enmity and that which had now been newly engendered.

Both the one and the other were natural.

He had succeeded in getting the girl away from her parents in opposition to both father and mother.

And now, almost within the first year of his marriage, she had been brought to this terrible misery by means of disreputable people with whom he had been closely connected! Was it not natural that Robert Bolton should turn against him?
If Hester had been his sister and there had come such an interloper what would he have felt?
Was it not his duty to be gentle and to give way, if by any giving way he could lessen the evil which he had occasioned.

'I am sorry to have to leave your presence like this,' he said, turning back to Mr.
Bolton.
'Why did you ever come into my presence ?' 'What has been done is done.