That night before he went to bed he wrote a letter to his wife, which was as follows: 

Dear Emily,

I have learned, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you have corresponded with Colonel Osborne since you have been at Nuncombe Putney, and also that you have seen him there.  This has been done in direct opposition to my expressed wishes, and I feel myself compelled to tell you that such conduct is disgraceful to you, and disgracing to me.  I am quite at a loss to understand how you can reconcile to yourself so flagrant a disobedience of my instructions, and so perverse a disregard to the opinion of the world at large.

But I do not write now for the sake of finding fault with you.  It is too late for me to have any hope that I can do so with good effect, either as regards your credit or my happiness.  Nevertheless, it is my duty to protect both you and myself from further shame; and I wish to tell you what are my intentions with that view.  In the first place, I warn you that I keep a watch on you.  The doing so is very painful to me, but it is absolutely necessary.  You cannot see Colonel Osborne, or write to him, without my knowing it.  I pledge you my word that in either case—­that is, if you correspond with him or see him—­I will at once take our boy away from you.  I will not allow him to remain, even with a mother, who shall so misconduct herself.  Should Colonel Osborne address a letter to you, I desire that you will put it under an envelope addressed to me.

If you obey my commands on this head I will leave our boy with you nine months out of every year till he shall be six years old.  Such, at least, is my present idea, though I will not positively bind myself to adhere to it.  And I will allow you 800 pounds per year, for your own maintenance and that of your sister.  I am greatly grieved to find from my friend Mr Stanbury that your conduct in reference to Colonel Osborne has been such as to make it necessary that you should leave Mrs Stanbury’s house.  I do not wonder that it should be so.  I shall immediately seek for a future home for you, and when I have found one that is suitable, I will have you conveyed to it.

I must now further explain my purposes and I must beg you to remember that I am driven to do so by your direct disobedience to my expressed wishes.  Should there be any further communication between you and Colonel Osborne, not only will I take your child away from you, but I will also limit the allowance to be made to you to a bare sustenance.  In such case, I shall put the matter into the hands of a lawyer, and shall probably feel myself driven to take steps towards freeing myself from a connection which will be disgraceful to my name.

For myself, I shall live abroad during the greater part of the year.  London has become to me uninhabitable, and all English pleasures are distasteful.

Yours affectionately,

Louis Trevelyan.’