When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave.  He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so.  But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr Outhouse.  Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan.  ’I hope all this may come to an end soon,’ he said.

‘I hope it may, Mr Stanbury,’ said the clergyman; ’but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece.’  This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr Outhouse could assume.

‘And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly.’

’Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr Stanbury.  What has he done to his wife?  He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money.  The only possible excuse is that he must be mad.’

Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln’s Inn.  Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home.  Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him.  He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph’s into the straight way of the Commercial Road.  Then he began.  ‘Trevelyan,’ said he, ’you are wrong in all this from beginning to end.’

‘What do you mean?’

’Just what I say.  If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right.’

‘A soft word!  How do you know what soft words I used?’

’A soft word now would do it.  You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right.  Can’t you be man enough to remember that you are a man?’

‘Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me.’

‘I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong.’

‘They have talked you over to their side.’

‘I know nothing about sides.  I only know that you are wrong.’

‘And what would you have me do?’

‘Go and travel together for six months.’  Here was Lady Milborough’s receipt again!  ’Travel together for a year if you will.  Then come back and live where you please.  People will have forgotten it or if they remember it, what matters?  No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now.’

But it was of no avail.  Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted.