The man had been a gambler at home on racecourses, and then had become a gambler at the gold-mines in the colony.

His life then, by his own admission, had been disreputable.
Who does not know that vices which may be treated with tenderness, almost with complaisance, while they are kept in the background, became monstrous, prodigious, awe-inspiring when they are made public?
A gentleman shall casually let slip some profane word, and even some friendly parson standing by will think but little of it; but let the profane word, through some unfortunate accident, find its way into the newspapers, and the gentleman will be held to have disgraced himself almost for ever.

Had nothing been said of a marriage between Caldigate and Mrs.Smith, little would have been thought by Robert Bolton, little perhaps by Robert Bolton's father, little even by Robert Bolton's wife, of the unfortunate alliance which he had admitted.

But now, everything was added to make a pile of wickedness as big as a mountain.
From the conclave which was held on Saturday at Puritan Grange to decide what should be done, it was impossible to exclude Mrs.Bolton.She was the young mother's mother, and how should she be excluded?
From the first moment in which something of the truth had reached her ears, it had become impossible to silence her or to exclude her.

To her all those former faults would have been black as vice itself, even though there had been no question of a former marriage.