She was still clinging to him.  ‘Louis,’ she said, ‘I am your wife.’

‘Yes; you are my wife.’

‘And will you still believe such evil of me without any cause?’

‘There has been cause horrible cause.  You must repent, repent, repent.’

‘Heaven help me,’ said the woman, falling back from him, and returning to the boy who was now seated in Lady Rowley’s lap.  ’Mamma, do you speak to him.  What can I say?  Would he think better of me were I to own myself to have been guilty, when there has been no guilt, no slightest fault?  Does he wish me to purchase my child by saying that I am not fit to be his mother?’

‘Louis,’ said Lady Rowley, ’if any man was ever wrong, mad, madly mistaken, you are so now.’

’Have you come out here to accuse me again, as you did, before in London?’ he asked.  ’Is that the way in which you and she intend to let the past be, as she says, like a dream?  She tells me that I am ill.  It is true.  I am ill and she is killing me, killing me, by her obstinacy.’

‘What would you have me do?’ said the wife, again rising from her child.

’Acknowledge your transgressions, and say that you will amend your conduct for the future.’

‘Mamma, mamma what shall I say to him?’

‘Who can speak to a man that is beside himself?’ replied Lady Rowley.

’I am not so beside myself as yet, Lady Rowley, but that I know how to guard my own honour and to protect my own child.  I have told you, Emily, the terms on which you can come back to me.  You had better now return to your mother’s house; and if you wish again to have a house of your own, and your husband, and your boy, you know by what means you may acquire them.  For another week I shall remain here; after that I shall remove far from hence.’

‘And where will you go, Louis?’

’As yet I know not.  To Italy, I think, or perhaps to America.  It matters little where for me.’

‘And will Louey be taken with you?’

’Certainly he will go with me.  To strive to bring him up so that he may be a happier man than his father is all that there is now left for me in life.’  Mrs Trevelyan had now got the boy in her arms, and her mother was seated by her on the sofa.  Trevelyan was standing away from them, but so near the door that no sudden motion on their part would enable them to escape with the boy without his interposition.  It now again occurred to the mother to carry off her prize in opposition to her husband, but she had no scheme to that effect laid with her mother, and she could not reconcile herself to the idea of a contest with him in which personal violence would be necessary.  The woman of the house had, indeed, seemed to sympathise with her, but she could not dare in such a matter to trust to assistance from a stranger.  ’I do not wish to be uncourteous,’ said Trevelyan, ’but if you have no assurance to give me, you had better leave me.’