He found Mrs Trevelyan waiting for him at the station at Siena.  He would hardly have known her, not from any alteration that was physically personal to herself, not that she had become older in face, or thin, or grey, or sickly, but that the trouble of her life had robbed her for the time of that brightness of apparel, of that pride of feminine gear, of that sheen of high-bred womanly bearing with which our wives and daughters are so careful to invest themselves.  She knew herself to be a wretched woman, whose work in life was now to watch over a poor prostrate wretch, and who had thrown behind her all ideas of grace and beauty.  It was not quickly that this condition had come upon her.  She had been unhappy at Nuncombe Putney; but unhappiness had not then told upon the outward woman.  She had been more wretched still at St. Diddulph’s, and all the outward circumstances of life in her uncle’s parsonage had been very wearisome to her; but she had striven against it all, and the sheen and outward brightness had still been there.  After that her child had been taken from her, and the days which she had passed in Manchester Street had been very grievous, but even yet she had not given way.  It was not till her child had been brought back to her, and she had seen the life which her husband was living, and that her anger—­hot anger—­had changed to pity, and that with pity love had returned; it was not till this point had come in her sad life that her dress became always black and sombre, that a veil habitually covered her face, that a bonnet took the place of the jaunty hat that she had worn, and that the prettinesses of her life were lain aside.  ’It is very good of you to come,’ she said; ’very good, I hardly knew what to do, I was so wretched.  On the day that I sent he was so bad that I was obliged to do something.’  Stanbury, of course, inquired after Trevelyan’s health, as they were being driven up to Mrs Trevelyan’s lodgings.  On the day on which she had sent the telegram her husband had again been furiously angry with her.  She had interfered, or had endeavoured to interfere, in some arrangements as to his health and comfort, and he had turned upon her with an order that the child should be at once sent back to him, and that she should immediately quit Siena.  ’When I said that Louey could not be sent—­and who could send a child into such keeping?—­he told me that I was the basest liar that ever broke a promise, and the vilest traitor that had ever returned evil for good.  I was never to come to him again, never; and the gate of the house would be closed against me if I appeared there.’

On the next day she had gone again, however, and had seen him, and had visited him on every day since.  Nothing further had been said about the child, and he had now become almost too weak for violent anger.  ’I told him you were coming, and though he would not say so, I think he is glad of it.  He expects you tomorrow.’

‘I will go this evening, if he will let me.’