How very much would Miss Stanbury’s tone have been changed had she known that at that very moment Colonel Osborne was eating his breakfast at Mrs Crocket’s inn, in Nuncombe Putney!

CHAPTER XIX

BOZZLE, THE EX-POLICEMAN

When Mr Trevelyan had gone through the miserable task of breaking up his establishment in Curzon Street, and had seen all his furniture packed, including his books, his pictures, and his pet Italian ornaments, it was necessary that he should go and live somewhere.  He was very wretched at this time so wretched that life was a burden to him.  He was a man who loved his wife, to whom his child was very dear; and he was one too to whom the ordinary comforts of domestic life were attractive and necessary.  There are men to whom release from the constraint imposed by family ties will be, at any rate for a time, felt as a release.  But he was not such a man.  There was no delight to him in being able to dine at his club, and being free to go whither he pleased in the evening.  As it was, it pleased him to go nowhere in the evenings; and his mornings were equally blank to him.  He went so often to Mr Bideawhile, that the poor old lawyer became quite tired of the Trevelyan family quarrel.  Even Lady Milborough, with all her power of sympathising, began to feel that she would almost prefer on any morning that her dear young friend, Louis Trevelyan, should not be announced.  Nevertheless, she always saw him when he came, and administered comfort according to her light.  Of course he would have his wife back before long.  That was the only consolation she was able to offer; and she offered it so often that he began gradually to feel that something might be done towards bringing about so desirable an event.  After what had occurred they could not live again in Curzon Street nor even in London for awhile; but Naples was open to them.  Lady Milborough said so much to him of the advantages which always came in such circumstances from going to Naples, that he began to regard such a trip as almost the natural conclusion of his adventure.  But then there came that very difficult question what step should be first taken?  Lady Milborough proposed that he should go boldly down to Nuncombe Putney, and make the arrangement.  ‘She will only be too glad to jump into your arms,’ said Lady Milborough.  Trevelyan thought that if he went to Nuncombe Putney, his wife might perhaps jump into his arms; but what would come after that?  How would he stand then in reference to his authority?  Would she own that she had been wrong?  Would she promise to behave better in future?  He did not believe that she was yet sufficiently broken in spirit to make any such promise.  And he told himself again and again that it would be absurd in him to allow her to return to him without such subjection, after all that he had gone through in defence of his marital rights.  If he were to write to her a long