‘Don’t you think she is very much changed?’ said Mrs Stanbury to her eldest daughter.

’Not changed in the least, mother; but the sun has opened the bud, and now we see the fruit.’

CHAPTER LIX

MR BOZZLE AT HOME

It had now come to pass that Trevelyan had not a friend in the world to whom he could apply in the matter of his wife and family.  In the last communication which he had received from Lady Milborough she had scolded him, in terms that were for her severe, because he had not returned to his wife and taken her off with him to Naples.  Mr Bideawhile had found himself obliged to decline to move in the matter at all.  With Hugh Stanbury, Trevelyan had had a direct quarrel.  Mr and Mrs Outhouse he regarded as bitter enemies, who had taken the part of his wife without any regard to the decencies of life.  And now it had come to pass that his sole remaining ally, Mr Samuel Bozzle, the ex-policeman, was becoming weary of his service.  Trevelyan remained in the north of Italy up to the middle of March, spending a fortune in sending telegrams to Bozzle, instigating Bozzle by all the means in his power to obtain possession of the child, desiring him at one time to pounce down upon the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s with a battalion of policemen armed to the teeth with the law’s authority, and at another time suggesting to him to find his way by stratagem into Mr Outhouse’s castle and carry off the child in his arms.  At last he sent word to say that he himself would be in England before the end of March, and would see that the majesty of the law should be vindicated in his favour.

Bozzle had in truth made but one personal application for the child at St. Diddulph’s.  In making this he had expected no success, though, from the energetic nature of his disposition, he had made the attempt with some zeal.  But he had never applied again at the parsonage, disregarding the letters, the telegrams, and even the promises which had come to him from his employer with such frequency.  The truth was that Mrs Bozzle was opposed to the proposed separation of the mother and the child, and that Bozzle was a man who listened to the words of his wife.  Mrs Bozzle was quite prepared to admit that Madame T. as Mrs Trevelyan had come to be called at No. 55, Stony Walk was no better than she should be.  Mrs Bozzle was disposed to think that ladies of quality, among whom Madame T. was entitled in her estimation to take rank, were seldom better than they ought to be, and she was quite willing that her husband should earn his bread by watching the lady or the lady’s lover.  She had participated in Bozzle’s triumph when he had discovered that the Colonel had gone to Devonshire, and again when he had learned that the Lothario had been at St. Diddulph’s.  And had the case been brought before the judge ordinary by means of her husband’s exertions, she would have taken pleasure in reading every word of the evidence,