All that was changed now, but it was not his fault that it was changed.  He was willing enough to risk his life, could any opportunity of risking it in this cause be obtained for him.  But were he to cudgel Colonel Osborne, he would be simply arrested, and he would then be told that he had disgraced himself foully by striking a man old enough to be his father!

How was he to have avoided the employment of some such man as Bozzle?  He had also employed a gentleman, his friend, Stanbury; and what was the result?  The facts were not altered.  Even Stanbury did not attempt to deny that there had been a correspondence, and that there had been a visit.  But Stanbury was so blind to all impropriety, or pretended such blindness, that he defended that which all the world agreed in condemning.  Of what use had Stanbury been to him?  He had wanted facts, not advice.  Stanbury had found out no facts for him; but Bozzle, either by fair means or foul, did get at the truth.  He did not doubt but that Bozzle was right about that letter written only yesterday, and received on that very morning.  His wife, who had probably been complaining of her wrongs to Stanbury, must have retired from that conversation to her chamber, and immediately have written this letter to her lover!  With such a woman as that what can be done in these days otherwise than by the aid of such a one as Bozzle?  He could not confine his wife in a dungeon.  He could not save himself from the disgrace of her misconduct by any rigours of surveillance on his own part.  As wives are managed nowadays, he could not forbid to her the use of the post-office, could not hinder her from seeing this hypocritical scoundrel, who carried on his wickedness under the false guise of family friendship.  He had given her every chance to amend her conduct; but, if she were resolved on disobedience, he had no means of enforcing obedience.  The facts, however, it was necessary that he should know.

And now, what should he do?  How should he go to work to make her understand that she could not write even a letter without his knowing it; and that if she did either write to the man or see him he would immediately take the child from her, and provide for her only in such fashion as the law should demand from him?  For himself, and his own life, he thought that he had determined what he would do.  It was impossible that he should continue to live in London.  He was ashamed to enter a club.  He had hardly a friend to whom it was not an agony to speak.  They who knew of him, knew also of his disgrace, and no longer asked him to their houses.  For days past he had eaten alone, and sat alone, and walked alone.  All study was impossible to him.  No pursuit was open to him.  He spend his time in thinking of his wife, and of the disgrace which she had brought upon him.  Such a life as this, he knew, was unmanly and shameful, and it was absolutely necessary for him that he should in some way change it.  He would go out of England, and would travel if only he could so dispose of his wife that she might be safe from any possible communication with Colonel Osborne.  If that could be effected, nothing that money could do should be spared for her.  If that could not be effected he would remain at home and crush her.