It was proposed by Mrs Outhouse that he should first see the mother, and to this he at last assented.  How blessed a thing would it be if these two persons could be induced to forget the troubles of the last twelve months, and once more to love and trust each other!  ’But, sir,’ said Mrs Outhouse, putting her hand upon his arm ’you must not upbraid her, for she will not bear it.  ’She knows nothing of what is due to a husband,’ said Trevelyan, gloomily.  The task was not hopeful; but, nevertheless, the poor woman resolved to do her best.

And now Mrs Outhouse was in her niece’s room, asking her to go down and see her husband.  Little Louis had at the time been with the nurse, and the very moment that the mother heard that the child’s father was in the house, she jumped up and rushed away to get possession of her treasure.  ‘Has he come for baby?’ Nora asked in dismay.  Then Mrs Outhouse, anxious to obtain a convert to her present views, boldly declared that Mr Trevelyan had no such intention.  Mrs Trevelyan came back at once with the boy, and then listened to all her aunt’s arguments.  ‘But I will not take baby with me,’ she said.  At last it was decided that she should go down alone, and that the child should afterwards be taken to his father in the drawing-room; Mrs Outhouse pledging herself that the whole household should combine in her defence if Mr Trevelyan should attempt to take the child out of that room.  ’But what am I to say to him?’ she asked.

‘Say as little as possible,’ said Mrs Outhouse ’except to make him understand that he has been in error in imputing fault to you.’

‘He will never understand that,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

A considerable time elapsed after that before she could bring herself to descend the stairs.  Now that her husband was so near her, and that her aunt had assured her that she might reinstate herself in her position, if she could only abstain from saying hard words to him, she wished that he was away from her again, in Italy.  She knew that she could not refrain from hard words.

How was it possible that she should vindicate her own honour, without asserting with all her strength that she had been ill-used; and, to speak truth on the matter, her love for the man, which had once been true and eager, had been quelled by the treatment she had received.  She had clung to her love in some shape, in spite of the accusations made against her, till she had heard that the policeman had been set upon her heels.  Could it be possible that any woman should love a man, or at least that any wife should love a husband, after such usage as that?  At last she crept gently down the stairs, and stood at the parlour-door.  She listened, and could hear his steps, as he paced backwards and forwards through the room.  She looked back, and could see the face of the servant peering round from the kitchen-stairs.  She could not endure to be watched in her misery, and, thus driven, she opened the parlour-door.’  ‘Louis,’ she said, walking into the room, ’Aunt Mary has desired me to come to you.’