When he had finished this he read it twice, and believed that he had written, if not an affectionate, at any rate a considerate letter.  He had no bounds to the pity which he felt for himself in reference to the injury which was being done to him, and he thought that the offers which he was making, both in respect to his child and the money, were such as to entitle him to his wife’s warmest gratitude.  He hardly recognised the force of the language which he used when he told her that her conduct was disgraceful, and that she had disgraced his name.  He was quite unable to look at the whole question between him and his wife from her point of view.  He conceived it possible that such a woman as his wife should be told that her conduct would be watched, and that she should be threatened with the Divorce Court, with an effect that should, upon the whole, be salutary.  There be men, and not bad men either, and men neither uneducated, or unintelligent, or irrational in ordinary matters, who seem to be absolutely unfitted by nature to have the custody or guardianship of others.  A woman in the hands of such a man can hardly save herself or him from endless trouble.  It may be that between such a one and his wife, events shall flow on so evenly that no ruling, no constraint is necessary that even the giving of advice is never called for by the circumstances of the day.  If the man be happily forced to labour daily for his living till he be weary, and the wife be laden with many ordinary cares, the routine of life may run on without storms; but for such a one, if he be without work, the management of a wife will be a task full of peril.  The lesson may be learned at last; he may after years come to perceive how much and how little of guidance the partner of his life requires at his hands; and he may be taught how that guidance should be given, but in the learning of the lesson there will be sorrow and gnashing of teeth.  It was so now with this man.  He loved his wife.  To a certain extent he still trusted her.  He did not believe that she would be faithless to him after the fashion of women who are faithless altogether But he was jealous of authority, fearful of slights, self-conscious, afraid of the world, and utterly ignorant of the nature of a woman’s mind.

He carried the letter with him in his pocket throughout the next morning, and in the course of the day he called upon Lady Milborough.  Though he was obstinately bent on acting in accordance with his own views, yet he was morbidly desirous of discussing the grievousness of his position with his friends.  He went to Lady Milborough, asking for her advice, but desirous simply of being encouraged by her to do that which he was resolved to do on his own judgment.

‘Down after her to Nuncombe Putney!’ said Lady Milborough, holding up both her hands.

‘Yes; he has been there.  And she has been weak enough to see him.’

‘My dear Louis, take her to Naples at once—­at once.’