I called this afternoon, but you were out. I am afraid you will be disappointed by what I have to tell you, but you should rather be glad of it. They say at the C. O. that Sir Marmaduke would not receive their letter if sent now till the middle of June, and that he could not be in London, let him do what he would, till the end of July. They hope to have the session over by that time, and therefore the committee is to be put off till next session. They mean to have Lord Bowles home from Canada, and they think that Bowles would like to be here in the winter. Sir Marmaduke will be summoned for February next, and will of course stretch his stay over the hot months.

All this will, on the whole, be for the best. Lady Rowley could hardly have packed up her things and come away at a day's notice, whatever your father might have done. I'll call to-morrow at luncheon time.

Yours always,

F. O.

There was nothing objectionable in this letter,--excepting always the "Dear Emily,"--nothing which it was not imperative on Colonel Osborne to communicate to the person to whom it was addressed. Trevelyan must now go up-stairs and tell the contents of the letter to his wife.

But he felt that he had created for himself a terrible trouble. He must tell his wife what was in the letter, but the very telling of it would be a renewing of the soreness of his wound. And then what was to be done in reference to the threatened visit for the Sunday morning? Trevelyan knew very well that were his wife denied at that hour, Colonel Osborne would understand the whole matter. He had doubtless in his anger intended that Colonel Osborne should understand the whole matter; but he was calmer now than he had been then, and almost wished that the command given by him had not been so definite and imperious. He remained with his arm on the mantel-piece, thinking of it, for some ten minutes, and then went up into the drawing-room. "Emily," he said, walking up to the table at which she was sitting, "you had better read that letter."

"I would so much rather not," she replied haughtily.

"Then Nora can read it. It concerns you both equally."

Nora, with hesitating hand, took the letter and read it. "They are not to come after all," said she, "till next February."

"And why not?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan.

"Something about the session. I don't quite understand."

"Lord Bowles is to come from Canada," said Louis, "and they think he would prefer being here in the winter. I dare say he would."

"But what has that to do with papa?"

"I suppose they must both be here together," said Nora.

"I call that very hard indeed," said Mrs. Trevelyan.

"I can't agree with you there," said her husband. "His coming at all is so much of a favour that it is almost a job."

"I don't see that it is a job at all," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "Somebody is wanted, and n.o.body can know more of the service than papa does.

But as the other man is a lord, I suppose papa must give way. Does he say anything about mamma, Nora?"

"You had better read the letter yourself," said Trevelyan, who was desirous that his wife should know of the threatened visit.

"No, Louis, I shall not do that. You must not blow hot and cold too.

Till the other day I should have thought that Colonel Osborne's letters were as innocent as an old newspaper. As you have supposed them to be poisoned I will have nothing to do with them."

This speech made him very angry. It seemed that his wife, who had yielded to him, was determined to take out the value of her submission in the most disagreeable words which she could utter. Nora now closed the letter and handed it back to her brother-in-law. He laid it down on the table beside him, and sat for a while with his eyes fixed upon his book. At last he spoke again. "Colonel Osborne says that he will call to-morrow at luncheon time. You can admit him, if you please, and thank him for the trouble he has taken in this matter."

"I shall not remain in the room if he be admitted," said Mrs.

Trevelyan.

There was silence again for some minutes, and the cloud upon Trevelyan's brow became blacker than before. Then he rose from his chair and walked round to the sofa on which his wife was sitting. "I presume," said he, "that your wishes and mine in this matter must be the same."

"I cannot tell what your wishes are," she replied. "I never was more in the dark on any subject in my life. My wishes at present are confined to a desire to save you as far as may be possible from the shame which must be attached to your own suspicions."

"I have never had any suspicions."

"A husband without suspicions does not intercept his wife's letters.

A husband without suspicions does not call in the aid of his servants to guard his wife. A husband without suspicions--"

"Emily," exclaimed Nora Rowley, "how can you say such things,--on purpose to provoke him?"

"Yes; on purpose to provoke me," said Trevelyan.

"And have I not been provoked? Have I not been injured? You say now that you have not suspected me, and yet in what condition do I find myself? Because an old woman has chosen to talk scandal about me, I am placed in a position in my own house which is disgraceful to you and insupportable to myself. This man has been in the habit of coming here on Sundays, and will, of course, know that we are at home. You must manage it as you please. If you choose to receive him, I will go up-stairs."

"Why can't you let him come in and go away, just as usual?" said Nora.

"Because Louis has made me promise that I will never willingly be in his company again," said Mrs. Trevelyan. "I would have given the world to avoid a promise so disgraceful to me; but it was exacted, and it shall be kept." Having so spoken, she swept out of the room, and went up-stairs to the nursery. Trevelyan sat for an hour with his book before him, reading or pretending to read, but his wife did not come down-stairs. Then Nora went up to her, and he descended to his solitude below. So far he had hardly gained much by the enforced obedience of his wife.

On the next morning the three went to church together, and as they were walking home Trevelyan's heart was filled with returning gentleness towards his wife. He could not bear to be at wrath with her after the church service which they had just heard together.

But he was softer-hearted than was she, and knowing this, was almost afraid to say anything that would again bring forth from her expressions of scorn. As soon as they were alone within the house he took her by the hand and led her apart. "Let all this be," said he, "as though it had never been."

"That will hardly be possible, Louis," she answered. "I cannot forget that I have been--cautioned."

"But cannot you bring yourself to believe that I have meant it all for your good?"

"I have never doubted it, Louis;--never for a moment. But it has hurt me to find that you should think that such caution was needed for my good."

It was almost on his tongue to beg her pardon, to acknowledge that he had made a mistake, and to implore her to forget that he had ever made an objection to Colonel Osborne's visit. He remembered at this moment the painful odiousness of that "Dear Emily;" but he had to reconcile himself even to that, telling himself that, after all, Colonel Osborne was an old man,--a man older even than his wife's father. If she would only have met him with gentleness, he would have withdrawn his command, and have acknowledged that he had been wrong.

But she was hard, dignified, obedient, and resentful. "It will, I think," he said, "be better for both of us that he should be asked in to lunch to-day."

"You must judge of that," said Emily. "Perhaps, upon the whole, it will be best. I can only say that I will not be present. I will lunch up-stairs with baby, and you can make what excuse for me you please."

This was all very bad, but it was in this way that things were allowed to arrange themselves. Richard was told that Colonel Osborne was coming to lunch, and when he came something was muttered to him about Mrs. Trevelyan being not quite well. It was Nora who told the innocent fib, and though she did not tell it well, she did her very best. She felt that her brother-in-law was very wretched, and she was most anxious to relieve him. Colonel Osborne did not stay long, and then Nora went up-stairs to her sister.

Louis Trevelyan felt that he had disgraced himself. He had meant to have been strong, and he had, as he knew, been very weak. He had meant to have acted in a high-minded, honest, manly manner; but circ.u.mstances had been so untoward with him, that on looking at his own conduct, it seemed to him to have been mean, and almost false and cowardly. As the order for the exclusion of this hated man from his house had been given, he should at any rate have stuck to the order. At the moment of his vacillation he had simply intended to make things easy for his wife; but she had taken advantage of his vacillation, and had now clearly conquered him. Perhaps he respected her more than he had done when he was resolving, three or four days since, that he would be the master in his own house; but it may be feared that the tenderness of his love for her had been impaired.

Late in the afternoon his wife and sister-in-law came down dressed for walking, and, finding Trevelyan in the library, they asked him to join them,--it was a custom with them to walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon,--and he at once a.s.sented, and went out with them. Emily, who had had her triumph, was very gracious. There should not be a word more said by her about Colonel Osborne. She would avoid that gentleman, never receiving him in Curzon Street, and having as little to say to him as possible elsewhere; but she would not throw his name in her husband's teeth, or make any reference to the injury which had so manifestly been done to her. Unless Louis should be indiscreet, it should be as though it had been forgotten. As they walked by Chesterfield House and Stanhope Street into the park, she began to discuss the sermon they had heard that morning, and when she found that that subject was not alluring, she spoke of a dinner to which they were to go at Mrs. Fairfax's house. Louis Trevelyan was quite aware that he was being treated as a naughty boy, who was to be forgiven.

They went across Hyde Park into Kensington Gardens, and still the same thing was going on. Nora found it to be almost impossible to say a word. Trevelyan answered his wife's questions, but was otherwise silent. Emily worked very hard at her mission of forgiveness, and hardly ceased in her efforts at conciliatory conversation. Women can work so much harder in this way than men find it possible to do!

She never flagged, but continued to be fluent, conciliatory, and intolerably wearisome. On a sudden they came across two men together, who, as they all knew, were barely acquainted with each other. These were Colonel Osborne and Hugh Stanbury.

"I am glad to find you are able to be out," said the Colonel.

"Thanks; yes. I think my seclusion just now was almost as much due to baby as to anything else. Mr. Stanbury, how is it we never see you now?"

"It is the D. R., Mrs. Trevelyan;--nothing else. The D. R. is a most grateful mistress, but somewhat exacting. I am allowed a couple of hours on Sundays, but otherwise my time is wholly pa.s.sed in Fleet Street."

"How very unpleasant."

"Well; yes. The unpleasantness of this world consists chiefly in the fact that when a man wants wages, he must earn them. The Christian philosophers have a theory about it. Don't they call it the primeval fall, original sin, and that kind of thing?"

"Mr. Stanbury, I won't have irreligion. I hope that doesn't come from writing for the newspapers."

"Certainly not with me, Mrs. Trevelyan. I have never been put on to take that branch yet. Scrubby does that with us, and does it excellently. It was he who touched up the Ritualists, and then the Commission, and then the Low Church bishops, till he didn't leave one of them a leg to stand upon."

"What is it, then, that the Daily Record upholds?"