Read it through once

"I said what I mean. I am not given to telling lies." Esther set the large tin candlestick, on which a wick was spluttering, on the kitchen table, and William looked at her inquiringly. She was always a bit of a mystery to him. And then he told her, speaking very quickly, how he had neglected to secure proofs of his wife's infidelity at the time; and as she had lived a circumspect although a guilty life ever since, the solicitor thought that it would be difficult to establish a case against her.