Nora simply replied that anything under any circumstances would be better than a separation.

On the morning of the third day there came the following letter: 

’Wednesday, June 1, 12 midnight.

Dearest Emily,

You will readily believe me when I say that I never in my life was so wretched as I have been during the last two days.  That you and I should be in the same house together and not able to speak to each other is in itself a misery, but this is terribly enhanced by the dread lest this state of things should be made to continue.

I want you to understand that I do not in the least suspect you of having as yet done anything wrong or having even said anything injurious either to my position as your husband, or to your position as my wife.  But I cannot but perceive that you are allowing yourself to be entrapped into an intimacy with Colonel Osborne which, if it be not checked, will be destructive to my happiness and your own.  After what had passed before, you cannot have thought it right to receive letters from him which I was not to see, or to write letters to him of which I was not to know the contents.  It must be manifest to you that such conduct on your part is wrong as judged by any of the rules by which a wife’s conduct can be measured.  And yet you have refused even to say that this shall be discontinued!  I need hardly explain to you that if you persist in this refusal you and I cannot continue to live together as man and wife.  All my hopes and prospects in life will be blighted by such a separation.  I have not as yet been able to think what I should do in such wretched circumstances.  And for you, as also for Nora, such a catastrophe would be most lamentable.  Do, therefore, think of it well, and write me such a letter as may bring me back to your side.

There is only one friend in the world to whom I could endure to talk of this great grief, and I have been to her and told her everything.  You will know that I mean Lady Milborough.  After much difficult conversation I have persuaded her to see you, and she will call in Curzon Street to-morrow about twelve.  There can be no kinder-hearted, or more gentle woman in the world than Lady Milborough; nor did any one ever have a warmer friend than both you and I have in her.  Let me implore you then to listen to her, and be guided by her advice.

Pray believe, dearest Emily, that I am now, as ever, your most affectionate husband, and that I have no wish so strong as that we should not be compelled to part.

Louis Trevelyan.’

This epistle was, in many respects, a very injudicious composition.  Trevelyan should have trusted either to the eloquence of his own written words, or to that of the ambassador whom he was about to despatch; but by sending both he weakened both.  And then there were certain words in the letter which were odious to Mrs Trevelyan, and must have been odious to any young wife.  He had said that he did not ‘as