Froude, however, could not stay permanently with the Kingsleys.  His father would have nothing to do with him, and in his son’s opinion was right to leave him with the consequences of his own errors.  But the outcry against him had been so violent and excessive as to provoke a reaction.  Froude might be an “infidel,” he was not a criminal, and in resigning his Fellowship he had shown more honesty than prudence.  His position excited the sympathy of influential persons.  Crabb Robinson, though an entire stranger to him, wrote a public protest against Froude’s treatment.  Other men, not less distinguished, went farther.  Chevalier Bunsen, the Prussian Minister, Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, and others whose names he never knew, subscribed a considerable sum of money for maintaining the unpopular writer at a German university while he made a serious study of theological science.  But he had had enough of theology, and the munificent offer was declined, though Bunsen harangued him enthusiastically for five hours in Carlton Gardens on the exquisite adaptation of Evangelical doctrines to the human soul, until Froude began to suspect that they must have originated in the soul itself.

At this time a greater change than the loss of his Fellowship came upon Froude.  While staying with the Kingsleys at Ilfracombe, he met Mrs. Kingsley’s sister, Charlotte Grenfell, the Argemone of Yeast, a lady of somewhat wilful, yet most brilliant spirit, with a small fortune of her own.  Miss Grenfell had joined the Church of Rome two years before, and at that time thought of entering a convent.  This idea was extremely distasteful to her sister and her sister’s husband.  Their favourite remedy for feminine caprice was marriage, and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Grenfell become Mrs. Froude.  There were some difficulties in the way, for Froude’s prospects were by no means assured, and Mrs. Kingsley felt occasional scruples.  But Froude had confidence in himself, and when his mind was made up he would not look back.

“You remember,” he wrote to Mrs. Kingsley, in 1849, “I warned you that I intended to take my own way in life, doing (as I always have done) in all important matters just what I should think good, at whatever risk of consequences, and taking no other person’s opinion when it crossed with my own.  Now in this matter I feel certain that the way to save Charlotte most pain is to shorten the struggle, and that will be best done by being short, peremptory, and decided in allowing no dictation and no interference ....  Charlotte herself is really magnificent.  Every letter shows me larger nobleness of heart.  You cannot go back now, Mrs. Kingsley.”