letter, argumentative, affectionate, exhaustive, it might be better.  He was inclined to believe of himself that he was good at writing long, affectionate, argumentative, and exhaustive letters.  But he would not do even this as yet.  He had broken up his house, and scattered all his domestic gods to the winds, because she had behaved badly to him; and the thing done was too important to allow of redress being found so easily.

So he lived on, a wretched life in London.  He could hardly endure to show himself at his club, fearing that every one would be talking of him as the man who was separated from his wife, perhaps as the man of whose wife Colonel Osborne was the dear friend.  No doubt for a day or two there had been much of such conversation; but it had died away from the club long before his consciousness had become callous.  At first he had gone into a lodging in Mayfair; but this had been but for a day or two.  After that he had taken a set of furnished chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, immediately under those in which Stanbury lived; and thus it came to pass that he and Stanbury were very much thrown together.  As Trevelyan would always talk of his wife this was rather a bore; but our friend bore with it, and would even continue to instruct the world through the columns of the D. R. while Trevelyan was descanting on the peculiar cruelty of his own position.

’I wish to be just, and even generous; and I do love her with all my heart,’ he said one afternoon, when Hugh was very hard at work.

‘It is all very well for gentlemen to call themselves reformers,’ Hugh was writing, ’but have these gentlemen ever realised to themselves the meaning of that word?  We think that they have never done so as long as—­’ ‘Of course you love her,’ said Hugh, with his eyes still on the paper, still leaning on his pen, but finding by the cessation of sound that Trevelyan had paused, and therefore knowing that it was necessary that he should speak.

‘As much as ever,’ said Trevelyan, with energy.

’As long as they follow such a leader, in such a cause, into whichever lobby he may choose to take them’—­’Exactly so, exactly,’ said Stanbury; ‘just as much as ever.’

‘You are not listening to a word,’ said Trevelyan.

‘I haven’t missed a single expression you have used,’ said Stanbury.  ’But a fellow has to do two things at a time when he’s on the daily press.’

‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you,’ said Trevelyan, angrily, getting up, taking his hat, and stalking off to the house of Lady Milborough.  In this way he became rather a bore to his friends.  He could not divest his mind of the injury which had accrued to him from his wife’s conduct, nor could he help talking of the grief with which his mind was laden.  And he was troubled with sore suspicions, which, as far as they concerned his wife, had certainly not been merited.  It had seemed to him that she had persisted in her intimacy with