’He does, does he?  May the devil sail along with him! that is all I say.  And does my much respected and ever-to-be-beloved mother-in-law sail with him?’

‘They all return together except Nora.’

’Who remains to comfort you?  I hope you may be comforted that is all.  Don’t be too particular.  Let her choose her own friends, and go her own gait, and have her own way, and do you be blind and deaf and dumb and properly submissive; and it may be that she’ll give you your breakfast and dinner in your own house so long as your hours don’t interfere with her pleasures.  If she should even urge you beside yourself by her vanity, folly, and disobedience, so that at last you are driven to express your feeling, no doubt she will come to you after a while and tell you with the sweetest condescension that she forgives you.  When she has been out of your house for a twelvemonth or more, she will offer to come back to you, and to forget everything on condition that you will do exactly as she bids you for the future.’

This attempt at satire, so fatuous, so plain, so false, together with the would-be jaunty manner of the speaker, who, however, failed repeatedly in his utterances from sheer physical exhaustion, was excessively painful to Stanbury.  What can one do at any time with a madman?  ‘I mentioned my marriage,’ said he, ’to prove my right to have an additional interest in your wife’s happiness.’

’You are quite welcome, whether you marry the other one or not, welcome to take any interest you please.  I have got beyond all that, Stanbury, yes, by Jove, a long way beyond all that.’

‘You have not got beyond loving your wife, and your child, Trevelyan?’

’Upon my word, yes I think I have.  There may be a grain of weakness left, you know.  But what have you to do with my love for my wife?’

’I was thinking more just now of her love for you.  There she is at Siena.  You cannot mean that she should remain there?’

‘Certainly not.  What the deuce is there to keep her there?’

‘Come with her then to England.’

’Why should I go to England with her?  Because you bid me, or because she wishes it, or simply because England is the most damnable, puritanical, God-forgotten, and stupid country on the face of the globe?  I know no other reason for going to England.  Will you take a glass of wine, Stanbury?’ Hugh declined the offer.  ’You will excuse me,’ continued Trevelyan; ‘I always take a glass of wine at this hour.’  Then he rose from his chair, and helped himself from a cupboard that was near at hand.  Stanbury, watching him as he filled his glass, could see that his legs were hardly strong enough to carry him.  And Stanbury saw, moreover, that the unfortunate man took two glasses out of the bottle.  ’Go to England indeed.  I do not think much of this country; but it is, at any rate, better than England.’

Hugh perceived that he could do nothing more on the present occasion.  Having heard so much of Trevelyan’s debility, he had been astonished to hear the man speak with so much volubility and attempts at high-flown spirit.  Before he had taken the wine he had almost sunk into his chair, but still he had continued to speak with the same fluent would-be cynicism.  ‘I will come and see you again,’ said Hugh, getting up to take his departure.