His mind was at work upon it always.  Could it be that she was so base as this, so vile a thing, so abject, such dirt, pollution, filth?  But there were such cases.  Nay, were they not almost numberless?  He found himself reading in the papers records of such things from day to day, and thought that in doing so he was simply acquiring experience necessary for himself.  If it were so, he had indeed done well to separate himself from a thing so infamous.  And if it were not so, how could it be that that man had gone to her in Devonshire?  He had received from his wife’s hands a short note addressed to the man, in which the man was desired by her not to go to her, or to write to her again, because of her husband’s commands.  He had shown this to Bozzle, and Bozzle had smiled.  ‘It’s just the sort of thing they does,’ Bozzle had said.  ‘Then they writes another by post.’  He had consulted Bozzle as to the sending on of that letter, and Bozzle had been strongly of opinion that it should be forwarded, a copy having been duly taken and attested by himself.  It might be very pretty evidence by-and-by.  If the letter were not forwarded, Bozzle thought that the omission to do so might be given in evidence against his employer.  Bozzle was very careful, and full of ‘evidence.’  The letter therefore was sent on to Colonel Osborne.  ’If there’s billy-dous going between ’em we shall nobble ’em,’ said Bozzle.  Trevelyan tore his hair in despair, but believed that there would be billy-dous.

He came to believe everything; and, though he prayed fervently that his wife might not be led astray, that she might be saved at any rate from utter vice, yet he almost came to hope that it might be otherwise—­not, indeed, with the hope of the sane man, who desires that which he tells himself to be for his advantage; but with the hope of the insane man, who loves to feed his grievance, even though the grief should be his death.  They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind.  Trevelyan would have given all that he had to save his wife; would, even now, have cut his tongue out before he would have expressed to anyone save to Bozzle a suspicion that she could in truth have been guilty; was continually telling himself that further life would be impossible to him, if he, and she, and that child of theirs, should be thus disgraced; and yet he expected it, believed it, and, after a fashion, he almost hoped it.

He was to wait at Turin till tidings should come from Bozzle, and after that he would go on to Venice; but he would not move from Turin till he should have received his first communication from England.  When he had been three days at Turin they came to him, and, among other letters in Bozzle’s packet, there was a letter addressed in his wife’s handwriting.  The letter was simply directed to Bozzle’s house.  In what possible way could his wife have found out ought of his dealings with Bozzle, where Bozzle lived, or could have learned that letters intended for him should be sent to the man’s own residence?  Before, however, we inspect the contents of Mr Bozzle’s dispatch, we will go back and see how Mrs Trevelyan had discovered the manner of forwarding a letter to her husband.