‘I have never had any suspicions.’

’A husband without suspicions does not intercept his wife’s letters.  A husband without suspicions does not call in the aid of his servants to guard his wife.  A husband without suspicions.’

‘Emily,’ exclaimed Nora Rowley, ’how can you say such things on purpose to provoke him?’

‘Yes; on purpose to provoke me,’ said Trevelyan.

’And have I not been provoked?  Have I not been injured?  You say now that you have not suspected me, and yet in what condition do I find myself?  Because an old woman has chosen to talk scandal about me, I am placed in a position in my own house which is disgraceful to you and insupportable to myself.  This man has been in the habit of coming here on Sundays, and will, of course, know that we are at home.  You must manage it as you please.  If you choose to receive him, I will go upstairs.’

‘Why can’t you let him come in and go away, just as usual?’ said Nora.

’Because Louis has made me promise that I will never willingly be in his company again,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.  ’I would have given the world to avoid a promise so disgraceful to me; but it was exacted, and it shall be kept.’  Having so spoken, she swept out of the room, and went upstairs to the nursery.  Trevelyan sat for an hour with his book before him, reading or pretending to read, but his wife did not come downstairs.  Then Nora went up to her, and he descended to his solitude below.  So far he had hardly gained much by the enforced obedience of his wife.

On the next morning the three went to church together; as they were walking home Trevelyan’s heart was filled with returning gentleness towards his wife.  He could not bear to be at wrath with her after the church service which they had just heard together.  But he was softer-hearted than was she, and knowing this, was almost afraid to say anything that would again bring forth from her expressions of scorn.  As soon as they were alone within the house he took her by the hand and led her apart.  ‘Let all this be,’ said he, ’as though it had never been.’

‘That will hardly be possible, Louis,’ she answered.  ’I cannot forget that I have been cautioned.’  ’But cannot you bring yourself to believe that I have meant it all for your good?’

’I have never doubted it, Louis never for a moment.  But it has hurt me to find that you should think that such caution was needed for my good.’

It was almost on his tongue to beg her pardon, to acknowledge that he had made a mistake, and to implore her to forget that he had ever made an objection to Colonel Osborne’s visit.  He remembered at this moment the painful odiousness of that ‘Dear Emily;’ but he had to reconcile himself even to that, telling himself that, after all, Colonel Osborne was an old man, a man older even than his wife’s father.  If she would only have met him with gentleness, he would have withdrawn his command, and have acknowledged that he had been wrong.  But she was hard, dignified, obedient, and resentful.  ‘It will, I think,’ he said, ’be better for both of us that he should be asked in to lunch today.’