And then there was that terrible question about the child.  Mrs Trevelyan had said a dozen times to her sister that her husband could not take the boy away from her.  Nora, however, had never assented to this, partly from a conviction of her own ignorance, not knowing what might be the power of a husband in such a matter, and partly thinking that any argument would be good and fair by which she could induce her sister to avoid a catastrophe so terrible as that which was now threatened.

‘I suppose he could take him, if he chose,’ she said at last.

‘I don’t believe he is wicked like that,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.  ’He would not wish to kill me.’

‘But he will say that he loves baby as well as you do.’

’He will never take my child from me.  He could never be so bad as that.’

‘And you will never be so bad as to leave him,’ said Nora after a pause.  ’I will not believe that it can come to that.  You know that he is good at heart, that nobody on earth loves you as he does.’

So they went on for two days, and on the evening the second day there came a letter from Trevelyan to his wife.  They had neither of them seen him, although he had been in and out of the house.  And on the afternoon of the Sunday a new grievance, a very terrible grievance, was added to those which Mrs Trevelyan was made to bear.  Her husband had told one of the servants in the house that Colonel Osborne was not to be admitted.  And the servant to whom he had given this order was the cook.  There is no reason why a cook should be less trustworthy in such a matter than any other servant; and in Mr Trevelyan’s household there was a reason why she should be more so as she, and she alone, was what we generally call an old family domestic.  She had lived with her master’s mother, and had known her master when he was a boy.  Looking about him, therefore, for someone in his house to whom he could speak, feeling that he was bound to convey the order through some medium, he called to him the ancient cook, and imparted to her so much of his trouble as was necessary to make the order intelligible.  This he did with various ill-worded assurances to Mrs Prodgers that there really was nothing amiss.  But when Mrs Trevelyan heard what had been done, which she did from Mrs Prodgers herself, Mrs Prodgers having been desired by her master to make the communication, she declared to her sister that everything was now over.  She could never again live with a husband who had disgraced his wife by desiring her own cook to keep a guard upon her.  Had the footman been instructed not to admit Colonel Osborne there would have been in such instruction some apparent adherence to the recognised usages of society.  If you do not desire either your friend or your enemy to be received into your house, you communicate your desire to the person who has charge of the door.  But the cook!

’And now, Nora, if it were you, do you mean to say that you would remain with him?’ asked Mrs Trevelyan.