They went across Hyde Park into Kensington Gardens, and still the same thing was going on.  Nora found it to be almost impossible to say a word.  Trevelyan answered his wife’s questions, but was otherwise silent.  Emily worked very hard at her mission of forgiveness, and hardly ceased in her efforts at conciliatory conversation.  Women can work so much harder in this way than men find it possible to do!  She never flagged, but continued to be fluent, conciliatory, and intolerably wearisome.  On a sudden they came across two men together, who, as they all knew, were barely acquainted with each other.  These were Colonel Osborne and Hugh Stanbury.  ’I am glad to find you are able to be out,’ said the Colonel.

’Thanks; yes.  I think my seclusion just now was almost as much due to baby as to anything else.  Mr Stanbury, how is it we never see you now?’

’It is the D.R., Mrs Trevelyan nothing else.  The D.R. is a most grateful mistress, but somewhat exacting.  I am allowed a couple of hours on Sundays, but otherwise my time is wholly passed in Fleet Street.’

‘How very unpleasant.’

’Well; yes.  The unpleasantness of this world consists chiefly in the fact that when a man wants wages, he must earn them.  The Christian philosophers have a theory about it.  Don’t they call it the primeval fall, original sin, and that kind of thing?’

’Mr Stanbury, I won’t have irreligion.  I hope that doesn’t come from writing for the newspapers.’

’Certainly not with me, Mrs Trevelyan.  I have never been put on to take that branch yet.  Scruby does that with us, and does it excellently.  It was he who touched up the Ritualists, and then the Commission, and then the Low Church bishops, till he didn’t leave one of them a leg to stand upon.’

‘What is it, then, that the Daily Record upholds?’

’It upholds the Daily Record.  Believe in that and you will surely be saved.’  Then he turned to Miss Rowley, and they two were soon walking on together, each manifestly interested in what the other was saying, though there was no word of tenderness spoken between them.

Colonel Osborne was now between Mr and Mrs Trevelyan.  She would have avoided the position had it been possible for her to do so.  While they were falling into their present places, she had made a little mute appeal to her husband to take her away from the spot, to give her his arm and return with her, to save her in some way from remaining in company with the man to whose company for her he had objected; but he took no such step.  It had seemed to him that he could take no such step without showing his hostility to Colonel Osborne.

They walked on along the broad path together, and the Colonel was between them.

‘I hope you think it satisfactory about Sir Rowley,’ he said.

’Beggars must not be choosers, you know, Colonel Osborne.  I felt a little disappointed when I found that we were not to see them till February next.’